Chapter 310

Just like the transition between the old and the new in all time periods in Hollywood, the newly released films will always squeeze the living space of the already released films. Most of the time, as long as the quality and publicity of the newly released films are good enough, it can be easier The victory over the films that have been released.

The new movie "Mission Impossible" is just like that.

Although there are a lot of slurs in the media, and some competitors have launched fans of the original TV series to protest against the movie version, the quality of the film is guaranteed, and the publicity is also in place. Tom Cruise's superstar appeal is strong. When this weekend passed, "Mission Impossible" became the new winner.

The film opened in North America with 3,055 theaters, and received 46.65 million U.S. dollars for three days over the weekend. It grabbed the top of the weekly box office chart from the three consecutive titles of "The Matrix."

The box office of "The Matrix", which lost the box office championship, still maintained an extremely stable and healthy decline. It won 18.55 million US dollars during the same period, and the North American box office totaled 252.14 million US dollars. It still tops the annual rankings.

Under the impact of "Mission: Impossible", "Peerless Tribulation" and "Godzilla" received 16.25 million US dollars and 9.65 million US dollars this weekend, and the North American box office of the two films also reached 72.11 million US dollars and 823≠ respectively. $30,000.

These productions with huge investment, apart from the box office, also have huge differences in audience reputation.

After being released for nearly a month, the audience's reputation of "The Matrix" has declined, but the audience's praise rate remains at 87%. On the imdb website, 3025 users participated in the score, and the score was as high as 9.35.

Of course, with the active participation of a huge navy, this imdb score is meaningless.

"Mission Impossible" has just been released, and the audience's reputation is not bad. The positive rate is also 85 percent.

"Peerless Tribulation" and "Godzilla" two films, the audience rating fell 70% and 60% respectively.

This summer, Tom Cruise, like Duke, is destined to be boundless.

However, unlike Tom Cruise, who embarked on a North American promotional tour, Duke missed the North American promotional tour of "The Matrix" because of illness, and rushed to the crew such as Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron. When overseas, he still stayed in Los Angeles. And began to prepare for the next stage of work.

An old friend found the Duke's studio.

"Duke, we are old friends."

In the office, the tall Christopher Lee sitting next to Duke said in a loud voice, "I urgently request to play Gandalf. This is a dream of mine. I dreamt about this moment twenty years ago. Pay for this role."

Looking at the gray hair. Christopher Lee, whose face is covered with age spots, Duke frowned. As a crazy "Lord of the Rings" fan, he has watched the content and highlights of the film more than ten times. Naturally, I remember that Christopher Lee's favorite is Gan. Astoria, not Saruman.

However, Duke also does not plan to let him play Gandalf.

It's not inappropriate, just because he is too old.

Duke thought for a while and said. "Lee, Gandalf has a lot of fighting scenes..."

Christopher Li Gang on the opposite side wanted to speak. He was interrupted by raising his hand, "Listen to me first, action scenes can indeed use stand-ins, but many scenes in the wild and struggling under the blue screen require actors to play in person."

"Lee, don't forget. You will be eighty years old soon." Duke said directly, "As a director and investor, I must consider the safety of the actors and the entire crew."

What Duke said were objective facts that could not be changed, thinking about his worsening body. Christopher Lee's face inevitably showed some disappointment.

"Cooperate with you again," he said extremely sincerely. "It has always been my dream. I would like to play any role in your film for free."

After "Break into Death Island", Christopher Lee became famous, but in recent years there have been no outstanding works and roles. At this age, it is not too much to describe him as a sophisticated person. As long as he appears in Duke's films, It means a lot of attention, and the follow-up benefits will inevitably far exceed this little salary...

Duke just smiled. He won't think about anything like zero pay. There is no thing in Hollywood that you don't want to pay back.

"Lee, let your agent contact Charles Rowan." He said slowly, "You prepare something for Saruman."

Christopher Lee left soon, and Duke looked at Tina Fey on the other side of the office, "Remember to inform Charles, the old rules."

Tina Fei understood the meaning of Duke's words and recorded it in the work log.

The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy requires a large cast. Others such as extras and some unimportant characters can be called before the filming begins, but the main actors and their stunt doubles need to be determined as soon as possible. Swordsmanship and archery training.

Especially for swordsmanship and archery, it is necessary to hire a dedicated coach. The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is a purely Western-style work, and Duke will not consider any movements from the East.

In this typical Western-style magical work, it is totally funny to make Eastern Kung Fu and other types of fighting.

Sitting behind his desk, Duke recalled the former "Lord of the Rings" actors, and then said to Tina Fei, "To Elijah Wood, Vigo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Ian McLean, Sean Davis, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Billy Boyd, Sean Austin... send out audition invitations."

It took too long, and some names were inevitably forgotten.

Having said this, Duke suddenly thought of another important person, once the first Hollywood motion capture person.

"Also, Tina." He continued, "Collect me a copy of Andy Serkins."

"Andy Serkins?"

From the facial expression, Tina Fei should know this person. She said, "The last time I had tea with Naomi Watts, I heard her mention that he should be in "King Kong"."

"Starring in "King Kong"?"

Duke frowned and then laughed. This is a good thing. If he guessed correctly, Peter Jackson must have used motion capture technology, which is to increase Andy Serkins' experience in this area.

"Remember to also send an audition invitation to Andy Serkis."

After thinking about it, Duke added, "In terms of new projects, in addition to Gerald Butler, send an audition invitation to Liam Neeson."

Tina Fei recorded one by one in the work log, but when Duke mentioned the new project, she asked, "Doug Walter called me and Warner Bros. asked about the progress of the script. They want to enter the review stage as soon as possible."

"Tell them that I will give them a script script before the end of June."

After completing the first third of the script and setting the outline of the plot characters, Duke handed the new script to the earliest department of the Duke Studio, the editorial review department, and several screenwriters were filling in according to the template.

Warner Bros. has decided to enter the review stage for this highly experimental film. After completing the routine procedures, it plans to pay for Duke.

Commercial companies like Warner Bros. certainly don't do charity activities. The super popularity of "The Matrix" gives them full confidence in Duke. After hearing that Duke has a small project before the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, CEO Jeff Robinoff visited the Duke's Manor for three consecutive visits and strongly requested that the project be completely handed over to Warner Bros.

This is the inevitable result of continuous success. Duke's halo is no weaker than Spielberg and James Cameron. Although the film is a small production adapted from real events, it's a song and dance like "Chicago." The commercials produced by him are full of selling points, and Warner Bros. obviously believes that his works will still have high returns.

For works whose future is uncertain, Duke will not refuse to pay for them.

However, the two parties only reached an intention, and everything will not be discussed in detail until the script is completed and approved by the Warner Bros. review committee.

Here, Duke is preparing for a new movie. On the other hand, the summer market continues to maintain an almost fierce competition.

On the second weekend of June, Walt Disney's four-year sword-hardened animation masterpiece "Mulan" landed in the North American market, and joined this chaotic enough strangulation. Disney Animation Studios have high hopes for this hand-drawn animation. Hope to get rid of the downturn in recent years.

However, "Mulan" obviously cannot bear this burden.

Although this animated film won $22.74 million with 2,888 theaters, and successfully won the North American box office list this weekend, the performance of $7,876 at the box office of a single venue is really hard to be said to be excellent.

The decline of hand-painted 2d animated films is inevitable.

"Mission: Impossible" netted $21.62 million this weekend, ranking second in the box office list by a small margin.

The Matrix, which has been screened on a large scale before, ushered in the first major shrinkage in the number of theaters. This weekend, the number of theaters in North America has shrunk to 2,655, earning $11.2 million in three days, plus the previous four working days. In North America's box office, the cumulative total of US$270.2 million has already reached the threshold of US$300 million.

But on Monday, the film's screening scale decreased again, and the number of North American theaters fell below 2500. This is a situation that every commercial film that has cooled down is bound to face, and "The Matrix" is also difficult to escape.

Overseas, "The Matrix" is also gradually cooling down, but the overseas box office officially exceeded 200 million U.S. dollars, and the global box office has reached 470.55 million U.S. dollars, and from this new week, the film will be widely used in another ticket warehouse market—— It was shown in many countries and regions in the Far East, including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The overseas box office is expected to continue to climb, thereby pushing the global box office of The Matrix to the $500 million mark. (To be continued...)