Chapter 388 Something Went Wrong

In order to be able to invite Eric to the premiere of "Fighting Condor", Fox deliberately moved the premiere to the day before "Ghost Detective", but Eric did not plan to attend the premiere of "Ghost Detective", No matter how sincere Fox is, it is impossible for him to attend the premiere of "Fighting Condor". It was enough for them to use their fame to publicize them before. $f capstone novel,

As the "Rocky 5", which was highly expected by MGM-Lianmei, with a production cost of up to 60 million, the release canvas is the largest among the three films, but the first weekend box office was released, and the result surprised many people.

The most promising "Rocky 5" was the one with the worst results. The previous sequel to this series collected 300 million US dollars worldwide, so "Rocky 5" was released on 2,000 canvases.

But in the first three days of the first weekend, "Rocky 5" only got 14.35 million box office, with an average of less than 7,000 US dollars per game. You must know that the last sequel "Rocky 4" has an average of 15,000 US dollars per game in the same period.

Not only the attendance rate is extremely low, but the reputation of "Rocky 5" is also extremely poor. The box office statistics agency directly lowered the box office expectation of the film to 50 million. It is impossible to recover the cost, and the media have also predicted this. The movie could well be the end of the Rocky franchise.

"Ghost Detective", which was released in more than 1,900 theaters, was only a little better than "Rocky 5", and received more than 15 million box office. However, this thriller comedy imitating "Ghostbusters" also did not get a good reputation.

In comparison, the most eye-catching is Fox's "Condor", which can almost be said to be a "chaotic" film, which has received an extremely low evaluation from the filmmakers. Even many excited conservative critics dismissed the film as a desecration of the classic.

But unexpectedly. This very novel situation of spoof films has been welcomed by a large number of audiences. In the first three days of the first weekend, the film received a box office of 25 million in more than 1,900 theaters. This figure is just in line with the film's cost. If the next film does not have a big box office drop, it may even become Fox's another box office this year. A million-dollar movie.

So far this year, only the summer "Die Hard 2" has achieved a box office of 110 million, but the production cost of "Die Hard 2" is 70 million US dollars, and the total announced and released is close to 100 million US dollars. Even with good overseas box office, Die Hard 2 didn't make much money.

Although "Fighting Condor" has 30% of Eric's investment, Fox will definitely take the big head. With the overseas distribution and the follow-up video tapes, this spoof movie will easily bring in profits of more than 100 million US dollars.

So Fox announced plans for the sequel immediately after the three-day box office release over the first weekend.

While Fox was ecstatic,

The mood of the Hollywood colleagues is quite complicated. The original "Ghost Detective" was not ideal at the box office. They thought this would be Eric's first Waterloo. But the results of "Fighting Condor" surprised everyone.

investigated in detail. It was quickly discovered that most of the investment in "Ghost Detective" came from an independent production company called Good Line Films, Good Line Films. Hearing this name, most people seem to understand something, and then thinking of the Black Ant Film Company that Eric suddenly established in the first half of the year, they realize that there is probably a problem inside Firefly.

However, Eric has not spared time to care about movies these days. On the eve of Thanksgiving, after the deployment of more than 600,000 troops of the multinational coalition in the Middle East, he quickly issued an ultimatum to the Saddam government. , demanding that Saddam withdraw from Iraq by January 15, 1991.

But Saddam immediately gave an extremely tough response to the coalition, saying that he would 'fight to the end'.

After the news was revealed, the crude oil futures market started a new round of shocks.

Remembering that the Gulf War broke out on January 17, two days after the ultimatum, Eric believed that even if his little butterfly fanned something, the time would not be too different.

In order not to attract too many people's attention, this time Eric did not fly to New York, but Chris came to Los Angeles.

Just like the last time most people didn't think Iraq would use force against Kuwait, this time, speculators still prefer that after the outbreak of the war, it will be as protracted as the previous two wars of the United States. Once this happens, the price of crude oil will rise again. Soaring, so after the ultimatum, speculators have started to build large long positions.

In the face of Eric's bearish views and ordinary people's bearish views, Chris did not have much doubts this time, but the situation this time was also very different from that before August. Before August, crude oil prices have been rising slowly, waiting for Iraq Invasion of Kuwait, it suddenly soared to a high of 40 US dollars.

But now, in the face of an imminent war, the crude oil futures market will become more turbulent and unpredictable. It will take up to two months from now to the outbreak of the war. Any piece of sensitive information may cause the price of crude oil to rise or fall sharply, and using the original ten times leverage is tantamount to death.

After some deliberation, the two unanimously decided to use $2 billion of funds to use a more secure five-fold leverage, and the remaining funds were used as a reserve margin.

On the one hand, this can minimize the risk, and on the other hand, Eric wants to put all the funds into it, but the scale of the futures market is so large, five times the leverage to support 10 billion US dollars is the limit. . If billions of dollars are fully leveraged, there will be no banks that guarantee tens of billions of dollars.

Chris stayed in Los Angeles for two days and left quickly, and Eric was completely focused on the most important thing. Even during Thanksgiving with the little girl Drew, Eric didn't stop the deployment.

Although the federal government's statutory Thanksgiving holiday is only one day, companies usually have a holiday from Thanksgiving Thursday until the next Monday. Firefly is no exception, in 1990 Thanksgiving was on November 22.

Monday, November 26.

Because of the release of several new films on November 22 and 23, the box office of "Rocky 5" dropped by as much as 55% in the second weekend, and only received less than 7 million at the box office, while "Ghost Detective" also fell by nearly 50% , this movie with an investment of 40 million is likely to lose money. However, under the attack of several new films, "Fighting Condor" still won the box office of 16 million in the second weekend and three days, and the total box office has reached more than 4,700. Ten thousand.

This day happened to be Firefly's year-end meeting. When he arrived at the company early in the morning, Robert Shea was keenly aware that something was wrong with the company's atmosphere. He thought it was a mockery of the box office failure of his "Ghost Detective". Therefore, he also used an excuse to lose his temper at a staff member.

At nine o'clock, when everyone has arrived, the meeting officially begins. (To be continued..)