I'm Not A Master, I'm A Director
Chapter 419: Alice — How Could I Bring Shame to Sir Matou?
After learning that Garden of Sinners would be going head-to-head with Pirates of the Caribbean, Shinji couldn't help but feel a tiny bit uneasy.
A reputation is a powerful thing. Going up against a once world-dominating film franchise—no matter how nonchalant he sounded on the surface—there was still a trace of insecurity lingering in his heart.
The massive pre-release promotion for Garden of Sinners, his excessive attention toward Pirates of the Caribbean, even going out of his way to watch the midnight premiere, and staying up all night just to get the first box office numbers… all of it stemmed, in part, from that lack of confidence.
After all, his previous opponents had been pushovers—at best mid-tier players. But now, he was suddenly facing a "King-tier" rival.
Even if that "king" was somewhat overrated, its reputation alone was enough to make Shinji tread carefully.
Perhaps the early promotional campaign had been too effective. It stirred up immense curiosity, drawing countless viewers into theaters on opening day, all eager to see what Garden of Sinners was really like.
But because of that, the midnight previews and Friday's opening had already burned through a significant portion of audience enthusiasm.
As a result, the box office inevitably dipped slightly on Saturday and Sunday.
Fortunately, the drop wasn't severe enough to impact the overall momentum.
For example, on Saturday—the second day of its global release—Garden of Sinners pulled in $60.67 million in North America alone.
Not only did this break the record for the highest single-day Saturday box office in June, it also became the second-highest single-day gross for June in North American history—second only to Garden of Sinners itself on Friday.
By Sunday, however, the hype finally began to show a more noticeable decline. Regular 2D screenings were no longer sold out.
Unless one was particularly picky about seating, even 3D screenings were easy to walk into without advance booking.
The only exception? IMAX screens.
Ever since the success of Super 8, IMAX had been rapidly expanding worldwide, pushing to increase the number of its theaters.
Yet due to the precision and complexity of IMAX projection systems, production capacity remained limited.
Even with new theaters opening, they still couldn't fully meet audience demand.
Whenever a blockbuster hit theaters, IMAX tickets would instantly become scarce.
And this time, with Garden of Sinners competing directly against Pirates of the Caribbean, some screening slots had to be allocated to the latter to avoid accusations of monopoly—making IMAX tickets for Garden of Sinners even harder to come by.
In large markets like North America, this wasn't too much of an issue. With enough effort—checking multiple theaters or waiting a few days—you could eventually get a ticket.
But in Japan, where cinemas themselves were already a scarce resource, securing an IMAX ticket was an entirely different story.
. . .
Sunday morning.
Having just returned from the magi gathering, Alice sat in front of her computer, repeatedly refreshing various movie ticketing websites.
Yet every page coldly delivered the same message to the young lady of the Kuonji family—
The few theaters with IMAX screens she could access?
Sold out today.
And sold out tomorrow too.
"What an absolute disgrace!"
Alice slammed her hand on the desk, so irritated she didn't even touch her tea.
"I actually failed to buy extra tickets in advance for resale!"
In the end, unable to bear it any longer, Alice shut the frustrating webpages and picked up her phone, dialing the number of the Type-Moon Cinema in Fuyuki City.
"I'd like to ask—when will there be available IMAX tickets for Garden of Sinners?"
The moment the call connected, Alice got straight to the point.
"Sorry, miss."
A gentle, pleasant female voice came through the phone. Yet to Alice, her words sounded like a devil's verdict.
"At the moment, IMAX tickets for Garden of Sinners are sold out. The earliest availability would be next Wednesday."
"Wednesday? That's… three days from now?"
Frowning slightly, Alice suddenly thought of something. Twisting her fingers awkwardly, she spoke in a hesitant tone.
"Um… I'm the head of Director Matou's Japan Fan Association. Do you think it might be possible to…"
This was the first time in her life that Alice had tried to use her status to pull strings. Her voice was filled with embarrassment and reluctance.
Unfortunately, reality was far harsher than she had imagined.
"Sorry, we currently have no tickets available."
"..."
That single sentence completely shattered her hopes.
Left with no choice, Alice reluctantly booked a ticket for Wednesday—though the seat was far from ideal—before hanging up the phone in defeat.
"…Look on the bright side. At least this proves Garden of Sinners is really popular."
That wasn't entirely self-comfort. After all, seeing something you love gain widespread recognition is something any fan would be happy about.
"But not being able to watch it is so frustrating… I even finished all my reports yesterday just for this…"
Letting out a helpless sigh, Alice idly traced circles on the desk with her finger.
She had deliberately wrapped up her magical research discussions with other magi the day before, just to free up today for the movie.
There was still part of the symposium happening today, but in Alice's eyes, their level was simply too low.
To her, exchanging ideas with those fools was far less valuable than watching Garden of Sinners one more time.
"…Sigh. If it's not IMAX, I don't even feel like going out."
Ever since experiencing the IMAX version once, Alice had become completely captivated by that special screen—one that even incorporated various magical techniques during projection.
To a magecraft enthusiast like her, IMAX was the pinnacle, the ultimate form of cinematic presentation.
With nothing else to do, Alice could only grumble softly to herself while browsing online discussions about Garden of Sinners.
And then she noticed that the film's rating had dropped from 9.9 to 9.3.
"H-How did it drop so much all of a sudden?!"
Alice's eyes widened as she stared at the screen, unable to believe that the movie she loved so dearly had fallen so far.
Sure, ratings would naturally decline over time—but this was way too sudden!
"Damn it, this won't do!"
Without hesitation, Alice immediately contacted members of the fan association through chat groups and forums, urging them to go boost the score—or at the very least, slow down its decline.
Then, she opened the IMDB review section for Garden of Sinners, trying to find the cause behind the sudden drop.
There had to be a reason.
And soon enough, Yukikaze Manabu's negative review caught her attention.
In the comments that followed, he even called on everyone who disliked Garden of Sinners to give the film the "treatment it deserved."
"What do you mean 'treatment it deserves'? This is nothing but slander!"
Alice protested indignantly.
Garden of Sinners was clearly her favorite work by Shinji Matou—it deserved nothing less than the highest praise.
So why…?
"These people…"
Alice opened the review pages for both Garden of Sinners and Pirates of the Caribbean side by side.
It didn't take long before she noticed something.
There were quite a few identical user IDs appearing in both sections.
These accounts all showed an oddly consistent pattern—giving Pirates of the Caribbean a perfect 10, while slamming Garden of Sinners with a brutal 0.1.
It was obvious.
If not for these coordinated low scores, Garden of Sinners would never have fallen so quickly from its lofty 9.9 pedestal.
However, the truth was a little more complicated.
Part of the rating drop was actually… Type-Moon's own doing.
Shinji understood very well that if a commercial film maintained a "god-tier" score for too long, it would inevitably raise suspicion. So even before the release, he had already instructed the marketing team to gradually bring the score down after premiere.
According to their original plan, the rating should have settled around 9.5 by now.
But just as Type-Moon was carefully adjusting the score, they ran straight into Disney's hired "review bombers."
Both sides pulled in opposite directions—yet somehow with the same result—causing the score to plunge straight to 9.3.
Of course, Alice had no way of knowing that this was the outcome of multiple overlapping factors.
In her eyes, this could only be the work of Pirates of the Caribbean's rabid fans.
Resting her chin on one hand, she stared at the screen, thinking for a while before her expression gradually hardened with resolve.
"…If you're going to play dirty, don't blame me for doing the same."
She immediately contacted the fan association again, issuing new instructions:
Not only should they mobilize everyone they knew to give Garden of Sinners a 10.0, they should also go and give Pirates of the Caribbean a 0.1.
"Not fighting back isn't Sir Matou's style! He's a man bold enough to stand against even the noble factions!"
Seeing the flood of replies appear almost instantly after she sent the message, Alice couldn't help but smile.
"As his fans, how could we possibly bring shame to him?"
And just like that, a silent war across the internet began.
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
At that very moment, Shinji himself remained completely unaware that a war centered around him had already erupted in unseen corners of the world.
[Garden of Sinners crushes all opposition, shattering records—A historic opening is born!]
[Shinji Matou's new series creates a brand-new box office myth!]
[Darkness descends upon the world—The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception "kill" the global box office charts!]
As Monday arrived, the first weekend of June across global film markets came to an end.
With almost no suspense whatsoever, Garden of Sinners had utterly dominated the box office charts in nearly every region—
Except one.
India.
And even there, the number one spot didn't belong to Pirates of the Caribbean, but to a domestic Indian film instead.
After all, in the eyes of Indian audiences, the little bit of singing and dancing in Pirates of the Caribbean could hardly even qualify as a musical.
Compared to their standards?
It was practically amateur-level.
Of course, strange and incomprehensible phenomena occurring in that "mysterious land" was nothing new.
Media outlets around the world unanimously chose to ignore that outlier, focusing entirely on hyping up Garden of Sinners.
Although its explosive box office performance was partly tied to rising 3D ticket prices in recent years, its massive audience turnout was an undeniable fact.
Other films also sold 3D tickets, so why couldn't they match the performance of Garden of Sinners and the Fate series?
In fact, many media outlets had already begun discussing whether Garden of Sinners could challenge the box office legend created by the Fate franchise.
Shinji, however, knew better.
That was nothing more than a fantasy.
Putting everything else aside, the very nature of Garden of Sinners' promotional and distribution strategy made such a feat impossible.
The overwhelming pre-release hype had pushed too many viewers into theaters during the opening weekend.
While that was excellent for smashing early records, it also meant that the film's long-term box office stamina had been significantly drained.
In truth, according to Shinji and Type-Moon's projections, the Garden of Sinners was always expected to open with outrageously high numbers in its first few days, but its box office curve would also decline just as quickly afterward.
After all, the story carried a heavy, somber tone, and its action scenes were far fewer compared to the Fate series. It simply wasn't the kind of film that encouraged audiences to return to theaters again and again.
And this was the fiercely competitive summer season.
Even if Pirates of the Caribbean was its biggest rival, that didn't mean there wouldn't be new challengers entering the battlefield afterward.
So once the initial wave of hype passed, a sharp drop in box office momentum was almost inevitable.
In fact, the signs had already begun to show as early as Monday—just not very obvious yet.
Monday was a weekday. Despite it being summer season, no schools actually start their vacation in June.
So a dip in Garden of Sinners' box office numbers on Monday was perfectly normal.
The real indication of weak staying power came from Tuesday's data.
Not only did the numbers continue to fall, but the decline itself was noticeably steeper.
Fortunately, thanks to its absurdly high starting point, even with fading hype and weaker longevity, the numbers it pulled in were still astonishing.
In less than a week, Garden of Sinners had already surpassed $200 million in North America alone—its largest market.
Industry analysts began predicting that it could very likely cross the $300 million mark within the same week.
In comparison, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean had only reached about $120 million so far—a gap that was glaringly obvious.
However, unlike the declining trajectory of Garden of Sinners, Pirates of the Caribbean was steadily climbing.
As time passed, its strong word-of-mouth was finally starting to translate into box office returns.
This didn't surprise Shinji in the slightest.
After all, in his original world, Pirates of the Caribbean had achieved something remarkable—
Its second-week box office had actually exceeded its first week.
In the post-2000 era of explosive box office growth, that kind of performance was nothing short of miraculous—comparable, in a sense, to the legendary total gross of Avatar.
And so, in response to the surging momentum of Pirates of the Caribbean, Shinji and Type-Moon ramped up their promotional efforts once again.
Led by Ryougi Shiki, the cast and crew began appearing nonstop across the internet, television, and print media—doing everything they could to keep the public's attention firmly locked onto Garden of Sinners.
The summer box office war of 2007 was now burning fiercer than ever before.
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Tn: I updated the story once every 2 days, but if you want to see more chapter of this story ahead of time, please go to my Patreon.
Latest Chapter: Chapter 455: Shinji — My Awesomeness Has Exceeded Even My Own Expectations[1]
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/Thatsnakegirl/posts/im-not-master-im-160861502?collection=31097
[2] https://www.patreon.com/Thatsnakegirl/posts/im-not-master-im-160861502?collection=31097