Chapter 259: Opening Screen Numbers and Strong Enemies

Apart from the beast Nana-pig, who was frightened by Rin's talking in his sleep during a rare tryst with her, the promotion of "Fate Stay Night" was proceeding in an orderly manner.

At present, all the test screenings have been completed, and the publicity and promotion departments of Nanaya and Washimine have also received the feedback they wanted.

After several preview screenings, thousands of movie fans in North America and Japan have watched the film, and many media reporters, film critics and theater representatives have also enjoyed the same treatment.

Judging from the reactions, the audience generally gave the film a good review. As loyal fans of commercial films, the summer movie they most want to see is a big special effects production like this.

The film critics were a little more critical. As the aloof representatives of the film industry, although they expressed their approval of the technical means displayed in the film, there were also considerable controversies.

For example, film critics feel that the most regrettable thing about the movie is that it does not provide in-depth character development for the heroes that appear in the movie, but instead focuses the main perspective of the movie on the young man Shirou Emiya.

In their view, delving into the hearts of these ancient heroes can take the artistic quality of the film to a higher level.

In this way, Fate movies would not present the cliché plot routine of ordinary people saving the world as they do now.

However, Nanaya basically just listened to what these people said. If he really wanted to shoot the film according to what they wanted, then the Holy Grail War would become a gathering of Heroic Spirits with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Although the film critics complained like this, under Washimine's strong public relations (money), they did not write overly harsh words in their film review columns.

The media also behave in the same way. Compared with film critics who still have some bottom line, the representatives of these media are even more shameless.

They all said they would write movie reviews based on the public's ideas.

In other words, if the public praises Fate, they will follow suit.

But at the same time, if the public curses, then these shameless guys will follow suit.

Nanaya was not surprised by this result. After all, the media are all fence-sitters. They only want readers to see what they want to see.

However, compared with ordinary movie fans and film critics, there is greater controversy among the most important theater representatives.

The few small points that the audience is dissatisfied with in the Fate movie will be infinitely magnified in the eyes of these people.

If it is simply because of the rating issue and the fact that the graphics of Fate are not as exciting as those of Goblin Slayer is a minor matter, then the other problem is more serious.

The cinema chain's film judges reported the situation truthfully to their leaders, and the cinema chain felt very embarrassed when they received the news.

"It's not a complete movie."

In the conference room of AMC Theaters headquarters, the company's president, Delinwood, was holding a scheduling meeting with his company's executives regarding the movie Fate.

This sentence was just said by Delinwood, and it caused the executives present to ponder.

The summer season is when competition for the movie industry is the most intense, especially for every special effects blockbuster, which are lucky bags that have yet to be opened for theaters.

The commercial value of these movies will determine whether the cinema's commercial performance this summer will be a three-win and ten-win, or a guaranteed failure.

Therefore, for every large-scale movie released, the theater chains need to carefully consider its screening schedule.

AMC Cinemas is an old partner of Washimine and Nanaya. The premiere of "Goblin Slayer" was held at the AMC Cinema in New York under the AMC Cinemas.

But in business matters, friendships are the most useless things. For a company, interests are more eternal than the relationship between the two parties.

Although the movie Fate received good reviews from the audience, the fact that it was not a complete movie made AMC Cinemas hesitant.

Movies are not TV series. When watching movies, audiences hope to see a complete story.

The dog behavior of telling a story halfway through is the worst possible choice for a movie.

It is already the 21st century, and it is no longer the era of the 1940s when movies were the only form of entertainment.

Nowadays, movies tend to choose to tell the whole story at once. Even series movies are divided into individual independent stories, rather than splitting one story into two.

There are situations in the upper and lower parts, but they are all very special.

Basically, those movies that split a movie into 2 or 3 parts are movies with a strong fan base.

Both the producers and the theaters know that even if a movie is split into two parts and sold, fans will definitely go to see the second part after watching the first part.

The most typical example is the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in recent years, as well as the later "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", "Infinity War" and "End Game".

Even for "Batman," which is set to be released in June, although a trilogy has been confirmed, the first film tells a complete story, but it only gives the audience anticipation for the next film at the end.

But even for "The Lord of the Rings", Peter Jackson was very particular about where to end the chapters. He would end the story only after the previous major conflict had been dealt with and the audience had finished watching the complete story.

But this is not the case with the Fate movie. The film's ending point is when Archer rebels and the hero and heroine are preparing to go to the castle.

The battle between the protagonist team and the villain Caster has not ended, so the story itself is incomplete.

The current North American film industry has not yet experienced the powerful fan effect of the HP series and the Marvel series.

Theater operators felt that the out-of-context treatment of Nanaya was too dangerous.

"This kind of editing method is too risky."

Delinwood said worriedly.

"What about the direct response from the audience? Are there any statistics?" asked an AMC executive in charge of the theater business.

"Have."

The representative who had attended the preview took out several copies of statistical tables and distributed them to the executives present.

"Washimine conducted five rounds of audience previews in North America and Japan. Excluding the previous previews that involved major changes, a total of 743 viewers who watched the final version participated in the questionnaire survey."

Another executive interrupted: "Let's just exclude Japan. Their viewing habits are too different from North America and have no reference value at all."

"That's what I did when I counted the responses." The representative nodded and said, "There were 643 valid audience questionnaires in total, of which 510 were rated A or A+. The overall rating is A."

"The data is good, but the sample size is a bit small."

Delinwood circled some key data with a pen. His brows were furrowed and it seemed that he had difficulty making a decision.

"What do the preview audience think about the movie being split into two parts?"

"There are quite a few complaints. They all want to finish the story in one go."

After thinking for a moment, the representative continued, "But the regret of the missing chapters did not stop them from giving an A on the questionnaire. The film's entertainment value is beyond doubt. And..."

"Just say it." Delinwood waved his hand. "You are the one among us who has the most direct feelings about the movie. Your opinion is very important."

"This movie, which can be considered as the first one, is already 2 hours and 10 minutes long, not including the end credits and Easter eggs.

"But after watching the whole movie, I felt that the plot was very smooth and the story was not too dragged out.

"To sum up, I think Washimine split the film up because there was too much content to fit into one movie."

The AMC theater representative stopped talking after saying this. He had already said everything that needed to be reported. What remained was the judgment of the company's top executives.

Delinwood tapped his fingers on the desk. After a long while, he made a decision: "All the IMAX theaters in the cinema will be given to Fate. As for the ordinary screens..."

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"Boss, the responses from all the theaters have been summarized."

Iioka calmly said to Shion, "Fate's opening figures in North America in its first week were 3,796 theaters and 5,432 screens. I estimate that even if there are changes later, the figures will not fluctuate by more than a hundred."

"Hehe, these guys are playing tricks on us."

After hearing her assistant's answer, Shion sneered twice.

The number of 3,796 cinemas may seem high, but the fact that the number of screens does not even reach 5,500 indicates that most cinemas only provide one screen for screenings.

If Fate doesn't perform well, it will probably be pulled from theaters on a large scale.

By then, it will be a question whether we can guarantee 2,000 screens in the second week.

"It's already pretty good. Compared to the 1,000 screens for Goblin Slayer, isn't it true that I'm already qualified to open a large-scale movie in North America?"

Nanaya was very content, especially after seeing that his film had achieved 100% screen opening on IMAX screens in North America. He felt that he had achieved a historical achievement.

"What about our competitors? Who are they?" Shion asked.

"Fate is scheduled to be released on July 1st, and its strongest competitors are DreamWorks' War of the Worlds, which will be released on June 29th, and Fox's Fantastic Four, which will be released on July 8th. Both are big-budget special effects movies."

Iioka's tone of voice remained as straightforward as ever, without any ups and downs at all.

But Shion, who is familiar with the North American film industry, knows very well that these two films are very strong competitors.

"War of the Worlds" was directed by Spielberg and starred Tom Cruise.

Although neither of these two is as unrivaled as they were in the late 20th century, they still have strong box office appeal.

Although "Fantastic Four" has mediocre director and cast, the characters themselves are its biggest selling point.

After all, the Fantastic Four are the most popular characters in Marvel Comics after Spider-Man and the X-Men.

"They are all strong enemies."

Shion suddenly realized that Fate seemed to be squeezed into an awkward schedule.

What kind of magic potion did this guy put into me that made him choose this time to release the film?

Thinking of this, Shion looked at Nanaya with a resentful look in her eyes.