From April 9 to April 15, "Fools Rush In 2" achieved a first-week box office of $43.67 million, effortlessly securing the top spot in the weekly box office rankings.
The powerful box office performance of "Fools Rush In 2" significantly impacted other films, with the second-place "The Sandlot" earning just $7.63 million in its opening week.
"New Nightmare," a highly anticipated release from New Line Cinema, ranked third.
After a disappointing opening weekend, "New Nightmare" managed a first-week total of $5.31 million, failing to produce any miracles or turnarounds.
On April 16, the start of a new week, three new films hit North American theaters: Warner Bros.' "Boiling Point," MGM's romantic comedy "Benny & Joon," and High Gate Pictures' drama "Wide Sargasso Sea."
Warner Bros.' "Boiling Point," starring Wesley Snipes, opened on 1,425 screens. This typical action cop film somewhat follows the trend set by the "Lethal Weapon" series.
MGM's "Benny & Joon," featuring Johnny Depp, tells the story of two siblings finding love despite their troubled pasts. It opened on 861 screens.
High Gate Pictures' "Wide Sargasso Sea," adapted from the novel of the same name, serves as a prequel to the famous "Jane Eyre," focusing on the story of the 'madwoman in the attic.' It opened on 505 screens.
Because the lead character in "Wide Sargasso Sea" is a mixed-race girl with dark skin, Simon personally selected Catherine Zeta-Jones for the role.
Last year, Zeta-Jones, known as the 'Man Killer,' replaced Nicole Kidman to star alongside Tom Cruise in "Far and Away," which despite moderate box office performance, significantly boosted her fame.
"Wide Sargasso Sea" had a promising internal preview, leading to its placement in the Easter release window with a relatively high screen count for an art film, totaling 505.
Upon release, "Wide Sargasso Sea" received the highest media rating for the Easter weekend, scoring an impressive 8.2.
However, the spotlight remained on "Fools Rush In 2" as its second-week box office performance was crucial for determining its ultimate success in North America.
In recent years, opening weekend box office figures surpassing $40 million often indicated a strong potential for $200 million in total domestic gross. Yet, with the trend of extensive opening releases, such high initial box office figures often led to steep subsequent declines.
Despite this trend, the $43.67 million first-week performance of "Fools Rush In 2" exceeded many expectations. As long as the second-week drop wasn't too severe, the film was poised to surpass the $120 million domestic total of its predecessor.
From April 16 to April 22, "Fools Rush In 2" saw a second-week drop of just 39%, bringing in an additional $26.61 million, maintaining its top position in the weekly box office rankings.
In just two weeks, this comedy, which Daenerys Entertainment had initially projected to gross $60 million in total, had already reached $70.28 million in North American box office revenue.
With a second-week drop under 40%, surpassing expectations, the film's strong box office trend indicated that it could achieve a total domestic gross between $130 million and $150 million, exceeding the $120 million total of the first film and becoming Daenerys Entertainment's first 1993 release to break the $100 million mark domestically.
Following the second-week results, New World Pictures, despite having signed only a two-film deal with Mike Myers, began discussions on the feasibility of developing a third installment.
Given the film's success in avoiding the typical steep decline for comedy sequels, Simon didn't oppose the idea of a third film but insisted that the budget be kept under $40 million. As a concession, Simon agreed to offer profit-sharing contracts to the main creative team.
Typically, after two $100 million-plus hits, increasing the budget for a third sequel to $60 million would be reasonable. However, Simon was willing to abandon the project if it required a $60 million budget.
With a $60 million production budget, at least $20 million would be needed for marketing and distribution.
An $80 million project is already considered a major release, and considering the limited international box office potential for the "Fools Rush In" series, the domestic box office would need to reach $150 million just to break even.
In contrast, the second and third installments of the "Austin Powers" series achieved $200 million in North American box office each, but Simon didn't have such confidence in "Fools Rush In." He saw $150 million as the ceiling for the series' domestic box office potential.
While exceptions could happen, as demonstrated by the second installment's box office surpassing initial expectations, Simon wasn't willing to take that risk.
The crucial factor was that Daenerys Entertainment had no shortage of other projects.
Over the years, they had accumulated a vast array of potentially lucrative properties, to the point of having difficulty scheduling them all.
Even in the comedy genre, projects like Jim Carrey's "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and "The Mask" were already in the pipeline. Carrey, with his distinctive comedic style, not only had comparable domestic box office appeal to Mike Myers but also held significant international market potential.
As the international market's contribution to Hollywood film profits grew, Carrey's advantages became increasingly evident.
Following "Fools Rush In 2," MGM's "Benny & Joon" took second place with a strong opening of $8.79 million, averaging over $10,000 per screen, surpassing the studio's expectations.
MGM quickly expanded the film's release in its second week from 861 to 1,363 screens.
Next, Fox's "The Sandlot" secured the third position.
This baseball-themed youth film experienced a second-week drop of just 28%, bringing in another $5.56 million.
With such a small drop, "The Sandlot" outperformed "Fools Rush In 2" in terms of percentage, but mainly because its initial box office was relatively low. Even with consistent 20% weekly drops, "The Sandlot" couldn't match the total box office potential of "Fools Rush In 2."
With a two-week total of $13.19 million and a steady box office trajectory, "The Sandlot" was on track to reach a domestic total between $20 million and $25 million.
Warner Bros.' action cop film "Boiling Point" ranked fourth with a $5.12 million opening week.
Considering its $9 million production budget, the $5.12 million opening suggested a domestic total of around $10 million, which, while not meeting expectations, could still allow Warner Bros. to recoup costs and make a small profit through various distribution channels.
High Gate Pictures' "Wide Sargasso Sea" secured the fifth spot.
This literary adaptation performed well thanks to its strong reviews and High Gate's targeted marketing strategy, earning $4.65 million from 505 screens, with an average close to $10,000 per screen.
Given the typical long-tail performance of art films, "Wide Sargasso Sea" had a good chance of reaching between $15 million and $20 million in total domestic box office, despite its modest $4.65 million opening week.
With a production budget of just $3 million and total project costs, including marketing, at $5 million, "Wide Sargasso Sea" was set to be profitable through domestic theatrical release alone.
Additionally, the film's strong media reviews could secure it some nominations during the awards season.
New Line Cinema's "New Nightmare" faced further disappointment, with a second-week box office drop of 36%, adding only $3.38 million to its total.
With a two-week total of $8.69 million, the film was projected to reach around $12 million in total box office, allowing New Line to recover its $17 million project cost through international sales and home video releases.
However, this project failure left New Line with little time to recover.
After the disappointing opening of "New Nightmare," New Line's stock began a steady decline, dropping 27% in half a month, leaving the company with a market value of just $46 million, a significant drop from its peak value of over $200 million in previous years.
With a total debt of $72 million, New Line was now insolvent.
After failing to find a buyer or restructure its debt, on April 23, New Line's CEO Robert Shaye filed for bankruptcy in a New York court.
Following Miramax, another studio that should have shined in the 1990s, officially exited the Hollywood stage.
Aside from Simon, there wasn't much lamentation in Hollywood over New Line's bankruptcy.
In the 1980s, with government support and the rise of the home video market, many independent studios sprang up, only to gradually disappear in recent years due to the harsh economic climate. Compared to companies like Canon Films and the De Laurentiis Group, which had grand ambitions and made a big splash, New Line's industry standing was never particularly prominent.
Now, starting with "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and ending with it, New Line's journey had come full circle.
Even keen industry insiders didn't fully grasp Daenerys Entertainment's targeted actions against both Miramax and New Line.
After all, suppressing up-and-comers was something the Big Seven studios were all doing.
However, many noted that Hollywood's competition had intensified, becoming increasingly hostile to smaller companies lacking financial support and distribution channels.
Besides the newly bankrupt New Line, Orion Pictures, supported by Canada's Seagram Group, had been struggling to survive, far from its Oscar-winning glory of the 1980s. Other
independent studios were also barely scraping by.
With over 20 years in business, New Line's most valuable asset was its extensive library of hundreds of film copyrights.
Danny Morris had mentioned this to Simon recently.
After some consideration, Simon decided to have Blockbuster participate in the upcoming auction for New Line's assets.
Having previously decided to quietly transform Blockbuster into a media company similar to the future Netflix, the past few months saw the establishment of Blockbuster Entertainment, Blockbuster Films, Blockbuster TV, and Blockbuster Home Video, all poised to engage directly in film and television project investments.
Recently, Blockbuster discreetly acquired the rights to several dozen films from Miramax's bankruptcy for $13 million.
New Line's library would be much pricier.
The "Nightmare on Elm Street" series alone had significant commercial potential, whether through home video revenue or future remakes. Additionally, unlike Miramax's mostly fragmented rights, New Line held complete rights to many of its films.
Blockbuster's team estimated that acquiring New Line's library would require at least $60 million to outbid interested competitors.
New Line's bankruptcy received only a brief mention in the industry-focused "Hollywood Reporter."
However, on April 26, the news of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley signing a $1.5 billion investment deal with Eaglet Corporation dominated the headlines of mainstream media for several days.
After over a month of negotiations, the $1.5 billion price remained unchanged, but the Westeros system made a significant 'concession.'
The $1.5 billion from the deal would not be pocketed by Westeros, but rather fully injected into Eaglet's account as capital for the company's future development through a stock issuance.
Issuing new shares to raise capital is entirely different from selling shares as a shareholder.
The key difference is that the latter requires paying capital gains tax, which was still as high as 28% at the federal level at the time.
To avoid paying hefty capital gains taxes, Simon had no intention of withdrawing cash from this stock transfer, making this so-called concession a strategic move to avoid more stringent demands from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
While many media outlets saw through this, they still admired Simon's ability to forgo $1.5 billion in cash so decisively.
After all, this was $1.5 billion in cash.
Even among the billionaires on the Forbes list, few could easily come up with that amount.
In addition to injecting all $1.5 billion into Eaglet, the Westeros company also agreed that Eaglet would pursue an IPO within the next three years. Moreover, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley secured the rights to underwrite Eaglet's future IPO.
Following the deal, besides media buzz, the immediate effect was another surge in the NASDAQ technology sector.
With Eaglet, a company barely four years old, achieving a valuation of $15 billion, along with Cisco and AOL, the remaining hesitant investors flocked to participate in the tech stock market.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Christie's acquisition by Melisandre Corporation was also progressing smoothly.
Despite British media calls for the government to scrutinize and prevent a historic British company like Christie's from falling into foreign hands, the UK government did not intervene.
The auction industry wasn't seen as critical to national interests.
Of course, a few politicians seeking attention did attempt to obstruct the deal.
However, with Melisandre backed by the Westeros system, and given its longstanding relationship with News Corporation, which controls a significant portion of the British media, these politicians were no match.
With introductions from high-ranking officials at News Corporation, Sophia Fisher attended several gatherings in British political circles, and after some maneuvering, Melisandre's acquisition of Christie's received approval from British authorities.
Post-deal, Melisandre publicly committed to keeping Christie's headquarters in London and promised not to implement major organizational changes in the short term, maintaining the company's long-standing traditional culture.
With the UK no longer the dominant empire it once was, and the recent pound crisis tarnishing its image further, Melisandre's assurances were seen as a way to preserve some dignity, and British media didn't pursue the matter aggressively afterward.
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