Although it is unfortunate, Jim is also well aware of the fierce competition during the summer season.
The screening resources of every cinema are crucial.
As for how much resources a movie can get, there are many considerations.
However, the composition of the crew and past commercial performance are basically the most important basis for theaters to make judgments.
The comic-adapted movie "Dragon Ball" does not have the support of the previous work, and there are almost no heavyweight stars joining.
The only thing that impressed the audience in the entire movie was the screenwriter of "X-Men 3".
Although the two Zhou stars in the movie are very famous in the Eastern world, who cares about them in Europe and the United States?
If they could have a record of being on the North American box office chart for four consecutive years like Nanaya Kiryu, then maybe the theaters would consider it.
Jim didn't say anything else to his boss. He had done everything he needed to do.
But the negative reviews from fans and audiences at the preview of "Dragon Ball" cannot be made up by public relations alone.
Although Iron Man 2 did not receive very good reviews from the audience, its overall A- rating at least shows that it has no problems as a popcorn movie.
He has a good relationship with Fox and the theater alliance, but Washimine Entertainment's theater public relations department is no pushover either.
Washimine Entertainment's performance and influence have grown significantly this year. If they had not yet obtained a seat in the MPAA, their development momentum would probably have been even more ferocious.
You have to know that AMC Cinemas, the second largest cinema chain in the United States, is a loyal dog to Washimine Entertainment.
In order to cooperate with Washimine Entertainment's 3D film project, the other party even planned to carry out large-scale upgrades and renovations to its cinemas in the fall of a few years.
Even Fox had never received such treatment.
"Damn you female vixen..."
Seeing that little Murdoch was still muttering to himself, Jim shook his head helplessly.
He felt that Murdoch Jr. had gone too far. You know, the enemies Fox needs to deal with during the summer season are not just Washimine Entertainment.
The North American summer season has always been a melee, with everyone except their own movies being the enemy.
If you care too much about one company and start fighting it, in the end the only ones who will be proud are the other companies.
Especially the other six.
When it comes to taking advantage of opponents' misfortunes, the talent points of these Hollywood executives have already been maxed out.
Jim's biggest hope now is that the first-week box office of "Dragon Ball" is good enough so that there is still room for maneuver and operation.
After all, there are examples in Hollywood where films that receive poor reviews at test screenings become big sellers, and this is not uncommon.
What's more, the audience group attending the preview of "Dragon Ball" was seriously biased.
Maybe non-fans of the original manga might like it?
Summer commercial films ultimately have to rely on market performance. Jim Gianopulos and 20th Century Fox have done all they can, and all that remains is to wait for the film to be released.
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May of every year marks the beginning of the summer season for the North American film market, and every opening weekend there is often a blockbuster movie released.
The first weekend in May this year belongs to Fox.
"Dragon Ball: Evolution", directed by Chinese-American director James Huang and with a production cost reportedly as high as $100 million, was released first in the summer.
As far as Japanese comics are concerned, the "Dragon Ball" IP can truly be said to be the top one.
Nanaya remembers that in 2019, "Dragon Ball" had the highest total revenue among all Bandai Namco IPs, reaching 129 billion yen.
The second place "Gundam" only had 79.3 billion yen, a difference of 50 billion yen.
What is the concept?
The third place "One Piece" was 30.4 billion yen, and the fourth place "Masked Rider" was 29.3 billion yen.
In other words, the second, third and fourth IPs under Bandai need to be added together to surpass the first place "Dragon Ball".
Among them, "Dragon Ball" naturally took the spotlight from the 2019 movie "Broly".
But in 2018, the IP with the highest revenue under Bandai was still "Dragon Ball", but the gap was not as big as in 2019.
More importantly, "Dragon Ball" is one of the few Japanese comic IPs that is also popular in Europe and the United States.
Not only is the comics explosive in Europe and the United States, but the Dragon Ball-derived fighting game is also a regular event in EVO, the world's largest fighting game competition.
There are many reasons why Europeans and Americans like "Dragon Ball", but the most important reason is the unique fighting scenes in "Dragon Ball".
Especially the fighting scenes in the "Dragon Ball" comics, which combine power and speed.
When watching, people have the illusion that the characters are really moving.
The influence of "Dragon Ball" in Europe and the United States can be said to be far-reaching. Many European and American cartoonists after it have borrowed from Dragon Ball in terms of fighting storyboards.
It can be said that Fox has a very good eye for selecting IPs.
In order to get a good start in the summer season, Fox specially created a grand premiere for the film.
Not only did they invite many Hollywood stars to support, they even specially invited the original author of "Dragon Ball" Akira Toriyama to help.
However, when seeing Akira on TV looking like he was living a life worse than death, Nanaya always felt that he was very pitiful.
"If it weren't for the promotional agreement, Akira wouldn't have come to the premiere, right?"
"Of course it is. It's been changed so much that even Akira can't recognize it. How can it be good?"
In response to Ryan's question, Nanaya gave an affirmative answer.
It's certain that Akira Toriyama is unhappy with Fox's live-action version of Dragon Ball.
Although he had to attend the film premiere due to the agreement, it was impossible to get him to endorse it.
As a cartoonist, Akira has long been fed up with being exploited by big companies.
When "Dragon Ball" was still being serialized, Shueisha didn't want to finish the series because of the popularity of the comics.
Not only did it forcibly prolong the life of the comics, but it also exploited Akira Toriyama himself almost madly.
This eventually led to Akira Toriyama developing a very serious occupational disease.
So much so that after the completion of "Dragon Ball", Akira never published any long comics again, and only did some short stories and game character design work.
However, as a cartoonist, the "Dragon Ball" series is enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.
But this creative process was undoubtedly painful for Akira.
The movie "Dragon Ball: Evolution" is neither Dragon Ball nor evolution.
Such a ridiculous movie naturally made Akira Toriyama extremely angry.
Others may care about the attitudes of News Corporation and Fox, but Akira Toriyama doesn't care at all.
If the film could be as realistic and touching as the Fate series...
No, even if the action scenes were only half as good as Transformers, Akira wouldn't mind singing praises for the film.
But what on earth is this shot of?!
The kung fu plot has nothing to do with Dragon Ball, and "Kamehameha" is just a borrowed name.
That would be fine, but Fox actually used a lot of the main plot to describe the love story of high school students?!
There's obviously something wrong with the brains of all the crew members!
These people are either idiots, bastards, or bakas!
In an interview, Akira directly said: "Is this Dragon Ball? Why can't I feel it?"
"This is clearly a romantic comedy movie about high school students, and Dragon Ball is just a foil. Shooting the movie like this is disrespectful to my work!"
Although Akira was extremely dissatisfied, thanks to Fox's public relations, his remarks were unlikely to appear in the mainstream media.
Even in newspapers owned by News Corporation, Akira was full of praise for the movie.
In large-scale commercial projects, the original author seems to be very important, but he appears to be very powerless in the face of capital.
Faced with the huge news group, Akira Toriyama was ultimately unable to make his own voice heard.
It is difficult for simple publicity to have much significance for a movie.
After all, the audience always votes with their feet.
The only reason they would buy tickets to see the movie is that it suits their taste.
However, the production cost of "Dragon Ball" was as high as 100 million US dollars (announced to the public), and the prior publicity and hype was also quite good.
Director James Wong was previously well-known in the field of horror films, and his "Final Destination" trilogy is quite popular among horror film fans.
Coupled with the support of the "Dragon Ball" IP, the film's attendance rate in the first three days of the weekend was quite good.
History goes astray here.
In Nanaya's previous life, the crew was against him and the publicity and promotion did not pay enough attention to him.
At that time, "Dragon Ball: Evolution" opened in only 2,200 theaters.
Because it was released in the off-season, its first weekend revenue was only 4.65 million US dollars.
And then... nothing happened.
Anyway, the movie's North American box office stopped at 9.3 million US dollars, not even reaching the 10 million US dollar mark.
This time, thanks to Fox's hard public relations efforts, "Dragon Ball: Evolution" was able to be released in 2,714 theaters.
And the release time is much better than in another time and space.
In the end, "Dragon Ball" successfully won the top spot in the box office chart of the week with a first-week box office of 45.07 million US dollars.
But judging from the results, it's indeed okay.
But the problem is that the audience reputation of this movie is almost terrible!
In the first three days of the weekend, the audience approval rating for this comic book-adapted movie was only 46%.
The ratings on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are even more dismal.
Not to mention the media, there was not a single positive review amidst all the criticism.
Of course, there are movies with bad reputation but high box office, but "Dragon Ball: Evolution" is obviously not one of them.
What's worse is that of the $45.07 million box office revenue, $37 million was earned in the first two days.
In other words, the box office on the third day, Sunday, was only 8 million.
You have to know that this is the summer season, and a single-day box office of less than 10 million on the first weekend is a very dangerous signal.
When Jim Ganopoulos saw the report data, his eyes went dark.
After working on film projects for so many years, he knew very well that "Dragon Ball: Evolution" was finished.