"So, Hugo, what do you think the premiere box office will be?" Alex asked in a low voice, siping the coffee in his hand.

"Oh my God." Joseph and Carl wailed at the same time, obviously not optimistic about Alex's proposal. Hugo shook his head with a smile, "I don't know how to play this kind of game, I'm not those boring media."

At this time, Hugo and five others sat in the third-floor cafe of the General Cinema in the city center, waiting for the "Yihai Heroes" at 4:30 pm.

The screening industry in the United States is controlled by several large theaters, including General Motors, Lianyi, Amc, Carmike, Marcus, etc. Currently, there are about 20,000 screens in the United States, and forty-five percent of them are controlled by these theaters, which has accumulated more than 80% of the box office revenue.

Of course, in addition to large commercial chain theaters, there are always some independent and art theaters in the American film industry. These art theaters provide strong support for American universities to offer film research courses. The number one art theater in the United States is the landmark theater. Although this Canadian theater, founded in 1965, currently has less than 30 theaters in North America, its support for art films is unquestionable.

However, the location of cinemas in the United States is quite special. They are generally located far away from the city. This is mainly because the cinema will develop supporting commercial areas such as parking lots and shopping centers around it, thus forming a large entertainment facility. A family only needs to drive to the cinema to meet the whole day of leisure and entertainment. Therefore, cinemas are rarely arranged in the city center.

The situation in Los Angeles is slightly different. In fact, there is no such thing as a city center in Los Angeles. Rich people live in the suburbs of the city center. The city center is just a place to work or work, while ordinary old residents will set their residences near the city center. The city center mentioned here is just a geographical meaning, and it is just an area radiated with the city hall as the center.

In fact, Los Angeles is a typical homonuclear urban cluster. From a formal perspective, Los Angeles has the establishment of various systems of cities and counties; but from the perspective of urban form, Los Angeles is a metropolis composed of nearly 100 homonuclear cities. These cities are arranged in a compact and orderly manner on a rectangular plot of nearly 10,000 square kilometers, with a clear outline. The City Hall is a dominant central point, shouldering the mission of the administrative region.

So when Hugo and his group wanted to choose a place to watch movies, they chose the city center, which is relatively sparsely crowded. There is a general cinema here, with a complete range of supporting facilities and the most prosperous area in the old city. After driving from Sunset Square for half an hour to arrive at the general cinema in the financial area of ​​the city center, you can see the small Tokyo and Zhongguo Town not far away. The skyscrapers around them are obviously much more than the area near Beverly Hills, but compared to Manhattan in the center of New York, it is like the difference between Shanghai and Shaoxing, and there is no comparison at all.

"Come on, guess what you want, choose a number." Alex was still unwilling to give up, this was the biggest fun before the movie was released.

"Don't scare him anymore, Alex." Charlize teased with an unscrupulous smile on his face, which immediately made Hugo frown. "When did I get scared?" Hugo said with a dissatisfied smile. "I know the premiere weekend will be successful, which is a predictable inevitable result."

Hugo has not forgotten to remind Charlize, "Don't forget, the premiere the day before yesterday received a lot of praise! I won't worry."

"Then just pick a number." Alex laughed and jokingly, causing Carl and Richards to sit opposite each other and burst into laughter. Joseph's facial expression was very stiff, and he looked even more nervous than Hugo.

Hugo looked at Alex's smile and shook his head to express his helplessness, "Okay." Then he thought about it carefully, but when it comes to box office, Hugo really couldn't remember too many details. He remembered that "Avatar" had a global box office of 2.78 billion, but he could not remember the specific numbers every weekend. What's more, the memory of "Yihai Xiongfeng" was very vague, so Hugo thought about it, "Ten million, Humph?"

Hugo remembered that the Los Angeles Times predicted 12 million before the movie was released, so he said more safe numbers, and then looked at Joseph, who was so nervous, "That's it, right?"

Joseph shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not." His expression was not much, but today, because of nervousness, his face became more and more stiff. "If the box office of the premiere was 10 million, then we have to look at the subsequent box office decline. You know, investing 40 million is not a small amount."

"How much do we need?" Hugo knew that Joseph and Columbia Pictures had close communication in the past two days, and was obviously talking about this.

"Two million, and the second week's box office drop cannot be higher than 20 percent." Joseph said with concern. "If it exceeds 15 million, it may be easier."

"15 million?" Carl is an insider of the industry. He couldn't help but curl his lips when he heard this number. After September, there were only three movies that had a premiere box office of over 10 million, namely "The Hidden Dragon Booms", "The Vampire Zombie's Four Hundred Years of Love" and "The Little Imperial 2". In the entire fourteen weeks, only three movies broke through 10 million when they were premiered. "Yihai Xiongfeng" has no action, no explosion, and no special effects to achieve this result. It is definitely an extremely difficult task.

"Go to his five million, I made my own predictions." Alex said proudly, "31,126,883 dollars."

It was actually a dollar, which made people unexpectedly, "How did it come from?" Joseph looked over with a look of surprise.

"One dollar more than the premiere of "Home Imperial 2"." Alex immediately laughed, "'Yihai Xiongfeng' will become the premiere box office champion for the autumn and holiday seasons!"

"Are you serious?" Hugo was amused by Alex's words. "'Home Imperial 2' is a sequel, and the first one was very popular. This time it relied on the mass base to reach this box office figure. I think the 15 million Columbia Pictures said is more reliable."

This is a fact. The premiere weekend of "Hometown" that swept the box office of 280 million US dollars two years ago was only 17 million. This time, "Hometown 2" has the advantage of sequels and won the premiere box office of more than 30 million, which is naturally not comparable to "Yihai Xiong Feng".

"Don't think about surpassing Kevin, it's better to target $12 million." Kevin, here refers to the name of the male protagonist of "The Little Imperial". Joseph said this, just because he doesn't want to continue to put box office pressure, give it to Hugo, and give it to him.

Box office is not a movie. Movies can be controlled by producers and directors, but box office is controlled by audiences and it is simply uncontrollable. Many times, film companies are confident in launching a work, but they end up losing money. Who could have predicted it?

"I think no matter what your predictions are, it's time for us to find out the results." Charlize pointed to the clock on the wall, "At least five of us contributed the box office, didn't we?"

"This is a fact. Seeing five people sitting in the cinema, it is obvious that they are much more at ease. At least they won't be alone." Hugo nodded seriously and said, angering Charlize directly. He raised his foot and wanted to give Hugo a jerk. But after spending more than half a year together, Hugo has long learned to be smart and avoided conditioned reflexes.

Charlize looked at Hugo with a smile on his face, grinding his teeth, and stood up and chased after him. Hugo ran away quickly, and the two rushed towards the entrance of the cinema. Looking at the two people fighting and making trouble, the three left shrugged at the same time, Carl did not forget to say, "Children are always naughty..."

After the five people walked into the cinema, Hugo began to look around and whisper to Joseph, "There are so many people coming to the cinema today, which is a good sign, right?" At this moment, the cinema was crowded, and the screening room that Hugo and others entered was basically full. There were still five minutes before the start of the movie, which means that no one was late, and the attendance rate was very high. This news was so wonderful.

Joseph nodded, "I bought the ticket or asked Rick, because I heard that several large theaters have started queuing up for ticket purchases." Originally, Joseph thought it was Rick Rosen's joke, but now after seeing it with his own eyes, he felt much more at ease.

"I just saw it. All the tickets for this game were sold out at 4:30." Charlize patted Hugo's arm and said in a low voice.

Although Hugo had been pretending to be calm just now, only he knew the tension in his heart. After witnessing the attendance rate of more than 90%, his boiling mood finally calmed down. But Hugo could not help but wiped his sweat. It turned out that box office pressure was like this. It was invisible and could not touch it, but it was as heavy as a thousand pounds, which made people breathless.

In the past, I felt that I was glorious when I saw an actor becoming a movie star, but now I finally realized the hardships behind it. The actors who were unable to become a star have their sadness, while the actors who were the star also had their own worries.

Hugo pulled the corner of his mouth at Charlize, "I hope this situation is not because they know I'm going to come to this theater." Hugo remembered that in the past, when leaders went to the countryside to inspect, the local government specially convened to create a prosperous scene and let the leaders visit. That's why Hugo made such a joke.

Charlize rolled his eyes, "If you think you have too much money and nowhere to spend it, I don't mind helping."

"So too." Alex's voice suddenly came from Richards' left hand, and a big smile was also included, which made Hugo's smile stuck in the corner of his mouth.
Chapter completed!