Domination

Another week began, and Lyman continued the promotional tour in major cities across France. "Fury" was still screening in various theaters, and due to its relatively good first-week box office performance, its dominance in the second week even showed a slight increase.

Meanwhile, other overseas regions began distributing the film as well.

Germany? Well, let's forget about Germany.

The distributors there were not willing to help with the release of "Fury", and the reason was clear. The film's stance was too awkward, making the film business people there hesitant to get involved. Moreover, it was foreseeable that even if it was released in theaters, the performance would be dismal.

No one wanted to bother with such a thankless task.

However, besides Germany, other regions had no such problems.

Overall, things were still acceptable.

However, during the Christmas season, no movie had much chance to accumulate a huge box office haul. With so many blockbusters releasing at once, their fate would be determined within two or three weeks.

Whether a movie would become a box office hit depended on its first weekend box office and the subsequent decline on workdays, which was quite apparent.

On Monday, the film's daily box office dropped from around $14M on the previous weekend to about $10M. On Tuesday, which was the traditional discount day for theaters in North America, the situation rebounded slightly, reaching $11.32M. Wednesday saw another decline, with $9.62M in revenue. Thursday's daily box office was only $8.43M, and on Friday, it was $7.26M.

During the second week of "Fury"'s release in North America, the film earned a total of $46.63M, directly securing the top spot in the weekly box office.

After all, any movie during this fiercely competitive Christmas season would inevitably face a decline in its second-week box office, and "Fury" was no exception. Naturally, "Die Another Day" also experienced the same fate.

However, when compared, the latter experienced a more severe drop.

But even so, thanks to the movie's genre and declining word of mouth among ordinary viewers, "Die Another Day" still had some market appeal.

The two rumored celebrities occasionally came out to show off their love and reveal some details about their romance. This generated enough attention to sustain their competition with "Fury." Nevertheless, after five days, they had only made $36.43M, which was quite a significant gap.

As for how many of these viewers were lured into theaters by the media's manipulation, perhaps one could glimpse a clue from the continuously declining IMDb scores and Rotten Tomatoes ratings for "Die Another Day".

With the upcoming weekend approaching, the weekly meeting at MGM Entertainment's film distribution department was filled with many high-level executives with heavy and suppressed expressions, indicating their displeasure.

"We contacted AMC, Regal, and Cinemark, but they all rejected our proposal to maintain the number of theaters for "Die Another Day"."

"And how about "Fury"?"

"It's about the same, but their situation is slightly better; they can maintain 2,400 theaters."

"..."

Joshua Blake, sitting in the position of the head of MGM's film distribution department, furrowed his brow slightly. After a while, he broke the silence in the conference room, "We don't have beautiful market data to support us. How can those bloodsuckers agree to the conditions for screening? We no longer have the capital to compete."

Although this statement was a fact, it was obviously unacceptable to many.

Reducing the number of theaters from over 2,700 to 2,000 meant significant losses, not to mention competing with "Fury."

"There's nothing we can do. Focus on the overseas distribution work. We have to give up on the North American market," another executive continued the discussion.

"In fact, our performance is not bad, but unfortunately, "Fury" has a better market performance, or else it wouldn't be like this."

Indeed, they had held the top spot in the weekly box office just last week.

"Hmm, "Fury" has already accumulated $88.65M in North America, and the market department predicts that it will eventually reach around $140M. The global box office is likely to approach around $400M," Blake Joshua shook his head and said calmly.

Everyone fell silent, and the meeting room fell into a quiet state. After all, they were not outsiders. With the strong support of the audience's positive word-of-mouth, and the market performance of "Fury" not experiencing a drastic decline like "Die Another Day", one could imagine that even with the addition of other major films in the future, "Fury" could still maintain a relatively healthy box office drop. Who knew how much the final box office would be? It might even break $400M.

The investment cost was only $50M, and it was already profitable just based on the box office alone...

Sitting in the top position, Blake Joshua couldn't help but entertain this thought. If it weren't for the strong sponsors, "Die Another Day" might still be worrying about losses. For a veteran spy series like that, it was not a good sign for its market prospects.

As for Nicolas Cage, he had just lost money on "Windtalkers", the film he had high hopes for, leading to criticism from the board of directors and the CEO.

If it weren't for his outstanding past performance in work, he might have become the scapegoat, just like the unfortunate colleague, the head of the marketing department, who resigned in disgrace. But how could two films that both belonged to the World War II genre and both featured soldiers have such different word-of-mouth and market performance?

At this moment, the feeling in Joshua's heart was uncomfortable. Although he knew that the success or failure of a movie couldn't solely be attributed to the actors, it was difficult not to think about it in this situation.

"Let's adjourn the meeting." Nobody was in high spirits, and there was no good way to salvage the declining situation of the film, nor was there anything else worth discussing.

"Don't stop the rumors about Pierce." Aside from that, they had nothing else to promote, and they needed to seize this topic firmly. Joshua reminded everyone, got up, and left the meeting room first...

Regardless of the disappointment among the people at MGM, "Fury", like all successful Christmas films, stood out from the fierce competition and continued to sprint towards new box office heights. Although the increase in box office numbers with the extended screening time brought a greater rebound in the market, the excellent word-of-mouth ensured that "Fury" continued to reap profits from the theaters.

On Saturday, the box office revenue was $8.63M, showing a slight increase from the previous workday. On Sunday, it reached $7.92M.

On this day, while Lyman's team was still on their way from Strasbourg to Montpellier for the last leg of their promotional tour in France, "Fury" successfully passed its third weekend in North American theaters.

As expected, it defended its top position in the North American weekly box office, and the better news was that when combined with the box office performance of the previous week, the total box office of "Fury" in North America reached $124.8M.

"Fury" successfully crossed the one-hundred-million-dollar threshold in the North American market, bringing joy to all parties involved, whether it was Paramount Pictures, EuropaCorp, CAA, or the director-investor Lyman.

However, Lyman was well aware that this should be the film's final glory in the market. In the future, the film would only accumulate a little more box office revenue over time.

Because on the upcoming weekend, December 18, a film that had achieved outstanding box office performance even after more than a decade was about to be released.

Yes, Peter Jackson's epic fantasy film "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" was coming to the screens with great momentum.

Any film that wanted to achieve something during the Christmas season mostly avoided the mid-December weekend. Lyman was not afraid of competition, but not being afraid didn't mean he would willingly run into a wall.

At first, he convinced EuropaCorp to compete with "Die Another Day" because he believed the latter's market dominance was too strong.

Now that they had obtained what they wanted and fought for, no matter how the market changed, it didn't matter much to the screening of "Fury", as the number of theaters had further reduced to around 880.

Relying on the accumulation of box office over time, every little bit gained was a profit, considering that the costs of promotion and production had already reached a rough balance. Now, everything earned was pure profit.

As the third weekend of "Fury" in North America approached, the box office data for the film's first week in various overseas countries also came in.

In the UK, it earned $7.65M, in Australia $4.65M, and in Italy $3.12M... It successfully occupied the top spot on the local box office charts, winning without any suspense. The only competitor, "Die Another Day", did not have as formidable a fan base overseas as it did in North America.

However, despite making money overseas, some films even relied on international box office revenue to recoup their investment or make a profit. Overall, this part of the box office settlement was quite troublesome for Lyman.

Even a film like "3 Idiots", how long had it been since its release? Europa Entertainment still hadn't settled all the shares from that part.

It was not that they were unwilling to pay, but the financial transactions and tax details were extremely complex, and it took a considerable amount of time to sort through it all.

However, Lyman was not in a hurry. He had hired a team of accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and they were all involved in the process. He had no worries about EuropaCorp trying to play any tricks.

After finishing the promotional activities and taking a few days of rest in Cannes in mid-December, on the 17th, Lyman flew to Los Angeles in North America with René, Thomas George, and others.

The City of Angels had many interpersonal connections waiting for him. In this highly commercialized society, this was something a director couldn't refuse.

Interpersonal connections, interaction, back and forth—these two words captured the essence of the most crucial way of networking in human relationships.