The first stop on this Far East promotional tour was Tokyo, and the primary figure for the crew's publicity campaign was Ken Watanabe, with Matthew in second place.
In any country with a sense of national pride and honor, such as Japan or other places in the Far East, even in European countries famous for art films, a star who finds success in Hollywood will receive special treatment.
Ken Watanabe's popularity in Japan was far beyond what Matthew had expected.
This was one of the reasons why the crew agreed to let Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy leave to film X-Men: First Class and why Christopher Nolan stayed in Los Angeles to prepare The Dark Knight Rises. Even though Emma Roberts didn't come along, Ken Watanabe was an essential part of the tour.
Japanese media headlines about Inception read:
"Famed actor Ken Watanabe teams up for the first time with Hollywood star Matthew Horner in the blockbuster Inception soon to hit Japan!"
"Ken Watanabe returns to Japan with Inception…"
Almost all Japanese media articles about the film put Ken Watanabe's name ahead of Matthew's.
Matthew didn't mind this. In the future, when Fast and Furious 5 promotes on the other side of the Pacific, he planned to put Nini at the forefront as well.
For the success and profits of the film, these things were trivial.
During the few days they spent promoting the film in Japan, Inception was advertised on 136 street billboards across 35 Japanese prefectures, 50 electronics stores, and in important subway and bus televisions throughout Japan. Such a large-scale promotional campaign was rare in the history of Japanese cinema.
Especially in Tokyo's Shimbashi Station plaza, when the movie's trailer played on the screen of a building in front of the station, the bustling crowd on the street suddenly stopped, all eyes fixed on the big screen. At that moment, Japan felt like a serene pool of water, with only the sounds from the screen breaking the stillness, as if it truly was a world of dreams.
In some ways, film is a creative industry, and a good idea can turn an ordinary movie into something extraordinary. However, some films with promising concepts fall short, turning great ideas into terrible movies.
Hollywood has countless examples of movies with great ideas that turned into flops. Inception, however, was one of those rare films that turned a great idea into an excellent movie.
But even a good movie still needs aggressive promotion.
After spending just a few days in Japan, Matthew and the crew headed to Seoul, South Korea. Since there were no Korean stars in the cast, the focus of the promotion naturally fell solely on Matthew.
At one of the press events, a South Korean reporter once again raised questions about the film's plot, especially regarding the ambiguous ending and whether the protagonist was still in a dream.
Since Christopher Nolan wasn't present, Matthew had to answer the question himself.
"As you can see from the ending, Cobb's real life and his dream world are very similar, so even he is a character who can be doubted," Matthew, having discussed this with Nolan before, responded according to Nolan's vision. "But whether or not the top keeps spinning doesn't matter because Cobb is already reunited with his children."
This was another of the film's main themes—family.
Across the world, the idea of working for one's family is a universally inspiring and correct value.
The first two days of promotion in Korea went smoothly, but after that, a new narrative emerged in the Korean media.
"Analyzing from his bloodline, Matthew Horner is actually Korean!"
This shocking news appeared in several media outlets in Korea, catching Matthew completely off guard.
In these reports, any trace of Matthew's Chinese ancestry was conveniently erased and replaced with claims of Korean heritage. Some articles even asserted that Matthew's success in Hollywood was because of his Korean bloodline.
They further claimed that his physical prowess was thanks to his practice of Taekwondo.
At one press event, this absurd claim was directly brought to Matthew.
"I have no Korean heritage, that much is certain," Matthew responded firmly but politely, not wanting to allow the press to continue spreading such baseless stories. "And I have never practiced Taekwondo. My agility comes partly from natural talent and partly from long-term training in boxing, fencing, and mixed martial arts."
Matthew couldn't quite understand the strange confidence that some people in Korea had.
After all, according to them, God was Korean, Jesus was Korean, Buddha was Korean, and every world-class celebrity was also Korean. It seemed that even the earth—no, the entire universe—was created by Koreans.
Let them have their fantasies.
With the supreme figurehead to the north who could supposedly command the entire universe's armies, air forces, and naval fleets, couldn't they be allowed to indulge in these dreams?
Better to just ignore it.
So after the final promotional event in Korea, Matthew and the crew were eager to leave Seoul and head to Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, back in North America, Inception began its second weekend of screenings, competing with a new release: the animated feature Despicable Me, produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures.
No one expected that an animated film with a production budget of just $70 million would deliver such a surprising box office performance.
On its opening day, Despicable Me grossed $21.3 million, surpassing Inception's $19.2 million and knocking it off the top spot for the day.
With Blue Sky Studios failing to produce another hit beyond Ice Age, Illumination Entertainment seemed to announce with Despicable Me that they were ready to stand alongside Pixar and DreamWorks Animation as one of the top three animation studios.
It also didn't hurt that Illumination Entertainment had a strong partner—Universal Pictures.
Thanks to Universal's marketing efforts, Despicable Me became a box office hit.
In Hollywood's competitive market, promotion and hype are essential. Despicable Me not only had a massive advertising campaign, but the film itself immediately grabbed children's attention. The main character, Gru, with his long nose and comical misfortunes, drew inspiration from both James Bond villains and Gargamel from The Smurfs.
And the adorable Minions, who made girls scream "kawaii," seemed like the spiritual offspring of Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc. and SpongeBob SquarePants, winning over audiences with their cute antics.
Despite the strong start of Despicable Me, it couldn't maintain its lead over Inception. On Saturday, Inception made a strong comeback, grossing $24.6 million and reclaiming the top spot from Despicable Me, which earned $20.83 million that day.
By Sunday, Inception was once again leading the box office, with Despicable Me trailing behind.
At the end of the weekend, Despicable Me had taken second place with $56.3 million, while Inception retained the top spot with $58.3 million.
Despite facing a family-friendly, all-ages competitor in Despicable Me, Inception suffered little impact at the box office.
With the four-day weekday earnings added in, Inception had grossed $195.6 million in North America by the end of its second week.
The $200 million mark in North America was just a small hurdle for Inception, and $300 million was well within reach.
In contrast to the success of Inception and Despicable Me, John Carter was struggling. After just four weeks in theaters, its weekend box office had fallen to just over $1 million, with a North American total of less than $40 million.
Many box office analysts had lowered their forecasts for John Carter's North American gross to just $45 million, predicting that even reaching $100 million globally would be a challenge.
Walt Disney Studios was reportedly extremely dissatisfied with their partnership with Brad Pitt, as the film's box office performance wasn't even recouping their marketing investment.
According to Helen Herman, several Hollywood studios had already blacklisted Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman from mid-to-high-budget projects.
After reviewing the latest North American box office statistics, Matthew predicted that John Carter would likely be pulled from theaters by mid-August at the latest.
As the new week began, Matthew found himself back across the Pacific.
This time, he took a more low-key approach compared to his previous massive publicity campaigns. Naturally, he would promote other companies' films differently than those he had invested in himself.
Another factor was that with a full month to go before Inception's release there, the promotional impact wouldn't be as strong.
There wasn't much they could do about it. No one said Hollywood blockbusters couldn't be released in July, but the film had been delayed in getting past the censors. By the time it was approved, the film had already premiered in North America.
There was nothing anyone could say about the situation, as the censorship process was never transparent, nor were the standards clear.
More and more Hollywood stars were making premieres and promotional tours in this region, and for local moviegoers, Hollywood stars were no longer seen as rare attractions.
What drew Hollywood stars here was the rapidly growing film market.
With a new World Trade Organization agreement and a film import memorandum on the horizon, the number of revenue-sharing Hollywood films would rise to 30, and the share of box office revenue would increase to 25%.
Correspondingly, the amount of money Hollywood could make in this market was also growing.
In response to this, Hollywood studios were putting more effort into this market, with a growing need for more sophisticated marketing strategies. The old
methods of media press releases, translating trailers and posters, buying bus stop ads, and holding premieres were no longer enough.
Warner Bros. adapted to this market by taking one of Inception's less prominent North American taglines and turning it into the main slogan here: "A movie only smart people can understand!"
Such a tagline wouldn't work in a mature film market, but in an emerging one, it was highly effective.
_________________________
[Check out my Patreon for +200 additional chapters in all my fanfics! $5 for all!!]
[w w w . p a t r e o n .com / INNIT]
[+50 PowerStones = +1 Chapter] [+5 Reviews = +1 Chapter]