I’m in Hollywood

Chapter 158 – Rebound

​In this era, a film critics’ income mainly comes from two aspects: the public relations fee of the film company and the publication fee of the film magazine.
Of course, the top film critics will have other types of income, such as publishing books or hosting TV programs.

George Northern was obviously not a top-notch critic, or《Premiere》magazine would not have easily dismissed George Northern after being pressured by Colombia. 

Because of the blacklist, when a film company was about to release new movies, George Northern would not receive a penny of public relations fees, and wouldn't even receive an invitation to a movie screening or the premiere .
If you can't participate in an early screening or the premiere, you won't be able to get the first-hand viewing information ahead of the average audience.
The newspapers and magazines are not as enthusiastic about the film reviews for movies that have already been released, so the revenue of the film review fee will be greatly reduced.
For both reasons, the lost income exceeds 80% of the original income. 

Therefore, being blacklisted by the six major film companies means that George Northern can no longer stay in the circle of film critics, and the fame that he had spent years building in the circle had also vanished. 

In fact, as a old-timer, George Northern also knows the rules of the game in the circle.
Many lines cannot be crossed.
Therefore, he has never done anything extraordinary before.
After years of hard work, he had a lot of fame in the industry, and his annual income had reached an enviable six-figures. 

Perhaps it was because of these many years of glory that George Northern was somewhat self-righteous and forgot his role, so he published several articles slamming《Running Out of Time》in succession.
It was originally just because he felt that he was teased by Nicole.
He wanted to blow off some steam and vent his anger.
He didn’t think that he had underestimated the 'influence' of these professional article.
He waited too long to curb his scalding and directly ruined his own career.

After the end of the first week, perhaps because of the turmoil, or maybe because Eric went on the «Sophia Talk show» to promote the movie, in the first working week,《Running Out of Time》earned more than 16 million at the box office, so the total box office in the first week reached more than 43 million, which was at least three million more than the estimation of Colombia for the first weekend of the box office.
This data gave Colombia confidence. 

At the same time, with the clarification of the《Running Out of Time》ringer question, the pre-determined 'topic marketing' advertising also started, the event opened in several entertainment newspapers and fiercely attacked the embedded advertisements in《Running Out of Time》. 

“More than 30 implanted ads, are we really watching a movie?” 

“These advertisements are entering hot water, we are not looking at 'dark wars', it is 'advertising wars'” TN: “Dark war” ==《Running Out of Time》so it's a pun.

“Eric Williams is starting down a road of no return with advertising!”

A series of very eye-catching headlines which directly pushed the topic of《Running Out of Time》to the cusp with the turmoil.
The public opinion of the media was once again stunned after a storm of questions.
Colombia also began to vigorously fight before other competitors could react.
They manipulated the direction of public opinion, turning most of the media’s comments on this matter into teases rather than attacks. 

Soon, the《Los Angeles Times》published an audience survey report, which was prepared in advance by Colombia.
The sample included those who had just come out from the《Running Out of Time》theatres.
The content was about the audience's opinion of the advertisement in《Running Out of Time》.

Among the survey of 1,000 random people, 76% of the audience did not feel the existence of advertisements in the movie, 15% felt the existence of advertisements, but did not care much, 7% of the audience expressed some concern about the advertisements, but only 2% felt that the choice of advertisements was annoying.

In order to ensure their credibility, the《Los Angeles Times》also published photos of a peer-check for the survey layout. 

This report set the tone for the《Running Out of Time》implanted advertising topic.

Whenever this matter was mentioned, many people felt that most others didn't even feel the existence of advertisements.
In addition, Columbia published some articles ridiculing others for their previous ringer articles, and the public's train of thought begun to be manipulated. 

Immediately, Colombia also began to stand up and clarify that there were indeed some advertisements in the film, but that it was not as exaggerated as told by the 'irresponsible' media.
Colombia also mentioned the 'ringer' question storm that had just happened, and dais that these were malicious attacks on《Running Out of Time》by competitors. 

As the guidance of public opinion continued, more and more people began to be curious about what ads were in《Running Out of Time》because as the survey showed, when a large number of people first watched the movie, they didn't even realize the existence of advertising in 《Running Out of Time》.
 
When Colombia’s competitors reacted and began to manipulate their own media to reverse the public opinion and lead the public to dislike the advertisements in《Running Out of Time》, Colombia directly dropped another bomb. 

On the second weekend of the movie, early Saturday morning, several newspapers, including the《Los Angeles Times》,《The New York Times》, and «The Washington Post», published a statement from the Columbia company. 

“Although according to the survey, the advertisements in the《Running Out of Time》did not affect the movie-going experience of the majority of fans, but in order to thank the fans for their support, after the film production and distribution finishes, we have decided that the $2 million in advertising fees received will be returned to the fans.
From the date of this announcement, the audience can send in letters with their guesses as to what the advertisements are to the following address.
200 lucky viewers will be selected, each winning $10,000 in cash.” 

Subsequently, the statement had the address, the deadline and that the would be only one letter per SSN, and that repeated entries would be invalid.

For a moment, the entire American media was once again stunned.
Even a lot of spectators couldn’t help but react.
This was blatant hype mongering.

But even if one knew this, you can't stop the enthusiasm of many of the viewers.
After all, it was currently the late 1980s.
For many American families, $10,000 is a huge sum.
Anyway, during the holiday period, everyone had the habit of watching movies.
If you watched the movie, and you took a few dozen cents to get an envelope and mail your guesses, you might get a $10,000 prize.
Why not? Moreover, the number of winners, 200 people, seems to be quite high. 

On the second day after the announcement, many movie theatres that screened 《Running Out of Time》were packed to the brim.
On the day of the announcement,《Running Out of Time》received a $13 million box office that same day, and then box office on Sunday also reached 11 million, so including Friday's 8 million US dollars, the box office of《Running Out of Time》reached 32 million for the second three day weekend, miraculously achieving nearly 20% of the box office in the competitive summer catalogue.
It is also the only movie in this summer catalogue that has a box office rebound. 

After the last day of the second week,《Running Out of Time》once again reached more than 49 million at the box office, so the total box office had reached 92 million. 

In comparison the five-week old show《Ghostbusters II》, whose the box office had begun to weaken, only had a box office of 90 million US dollars total, and «Batman» was affected by the《Running Out of Time》trend, as it's fourth week's box office fell 44% again, only reaching 16 million US dollars, so although the cumulative box office had reached 168 million, if the box office once again showed a drop of about 40%, the box office of «Batman»  can only be expected to rise by about another 10 million.
That with《Running Out of Time》's current box office trend of tens of millions in box office revenue per week that may still last three to four weeks, means that the final champion of the summer catalog's box office is really hard to say.

This result has made many film companies a little scared.
Even many of Columbia’s executives felt a sense of giddy happiness so large that it was hard to adapt.
Columbia’s stock was rising again, with the total market value breaking through $4.5 billion after a few weeks.
After, Sony, which had already reached an initial agreement, become anxious.
It was originally planned to complete the acquisition at the end of September, but the head of Sony had made several requests, hoping to sign a final agreement in August.
At that time, if《Running Out of Time》has overtaken «Batman» to win the summer box office, the rise in the stock price will definitely not stop. 

When the third week of《Running Out of Time》box office fell 26%, still earning more than 38 million at the box office, the puzzled media can only attribute this to the masses' desire for hope. 

Although many film companies also want to learn from the lottery method used by Colombia for publicity, it was a pity that the releases of the summer movies had ended.
The《Running Out of Time》can be said to be the last of the wave of big production movies, which was released earlier.
There is not much meaning in such advertising for a smaller film. 

The films released after《Running Out of Time》were not too optimistic about the money coming into the market at the end of the summer, so other film companies simply did not dare to put out 2 million, even if it were 1 million, there were very few companies are willing to spend it.
After all, this risk was too great.
Even if a movie gets a 100 million box office, after the theatre's cut is removed, the remaining half will need to be divided between investors, producers, and issuers.
Finally, after paying taxes, profits are usually only in the millions.
Having a share of hundreds of millions Like Eric from «Home Alone» is unique in the circle.
Even if it is series currently recognized as the most profitable, “Star Wars”, Lucas can't get such a high profit from only the box office.

This time, Colombia used the method of speculation over insert advertisements to achieve a major reversal at the box office, and it was also destined to become a classic marketing case studied by major film companies. 

Eric was not worried about this way being learned, because this operation is a new type of attack, and to put it bluntly, the audience will only feel that implant advertisements are new and interesting once or twice.
Once it is used a few times, the audience will definitely produce an 'I am watching the movie for entertainment, not the advertising' viewpoint, so doing more competitions would trigger reverse psychology and only be counterproductive.