On the last weekend of March, "Inferno" continued to dominate the North American and global box office charts with an unstoppable momentum.
Compared to its first weekend, Inferno's box office decline was controlled within 50% in its second weekend, earning $86.6 million.
Before April, "Inferno" had grossed more than $340 million in North America.
It can be said that the entire spring season of 2008 was dominated by "Inferno".
The animated film "Horton Hears a Who," which was released a week earlier than "Inferno," has seen its single-day box office fall below $2 million.
The film's single-theater box office and number of theaters are shrinking rapidly, and it can only be screened in about 1,000 theaters.
This is all thanks to "Purgatory Fire".
After all, this movie is indeed not suitable for children, and it provides parents with children with an additional choice.
But even so, professional structures predict that the box office performance of this movie should be around 103 million US dollars at most.
Although it is currently ranked second, the gap between it and the current champion movie is really too big.
It is estimated that the remaining screening time of "Horton Hears a Who" in the North American market will not be too long.
Relying on producing one high-quality work every year for three consecutive years.
The Fate series has stood out from many commercial film projects and has become the most commercially valuable new IP in the first decade of the 21st century.
Others could only watch with envy as Washimine, a company that originally only made games, made huge profits in the film market, while they could only drool with envy.
Thanks to the Fate brand, Washimine has also gained his own fame in Hollywood, and some film projects have come to him.
Although the large projects among these projects are deep pits and look beautiful, Nanaya, who has a vision for the future, knows at a glance that they are money-losing goods.
But there are still some very interesting film projects, which are usually low-budget comedies and horror films.
Although they are not very famous movies, they have the advantages of small investment scale, fixed audience, and fast capital recovery.
For Washimine, which started relatively late in Hollywood, these projects are very good investment targets and can effectively supplement its film library.
However, what Nanaya values more is the talents brought by these film projects.
Even in Hollywood, filmmakers who emerge suddenly are very rare.
No, it should be said that precisely because of the perfect business environment in Hollywood, there are fewer such people.
Most people who can accomplish this feat are extremely talented in this industry and extremely lucky, such as James Cameron.
Most of the talented people in the film industry have climbed up from the bottom step by step.
Among those film projects that actively sought to be promoted to Washimine, Nanaya discovered many people who would later become famous in Hollywood.
Although these people are not geniuses, they are very good executors.
For Washimine, which does not have sufficient talent reserves, these people can be won over.
Perhaps these talents are not fully developed yet and still need training.
But what they lack now is the opportunity to exercise.
With Washimine's help, these people got the opportunity to become filmmakers.
Even if the cooperation ends in the future, the kindness will still be there.
This network of contacts is also very important for Washimine to expand his business in Hollywood.
You know, Nanaya saw a lot of familiar faces among these people, such as Todd Phillips, the director of "Joker", James Gunn, the director of "Guardians of the Galaxy", and Gillian Flynn, the screenwriter of the movies "Widows" and "Gone Girl".
Knowing the future achievements of these people, Nanaya even had the illusion that all the heroes in the world had fallen into a trap.
Um.
This is indeed an illusion.
Following Nanaya's advice, Shion categorized the items.
Nanaya was optimistic about the film and proposed that the project had the potential to make a profit, so the project was approved.
Because the production of "Madoka Magica" was invested by Nanaya personally, the profits generated by Washimine Entertainment from "Inferno" will not be used for film production in the near future.
But it's not a good idea to just keep the money there, and it's obviously not suitable for use in finance.
Although the financial crisis in 2008 did not show its first signs until July, it fully broke out in September with the global stock market crash as the prelude.
But now various signs have appeared.
Although Nanaya didn't have much impression of this financial crisis.
But if we take the results as a premise and let professionals work backwards, it will not be too difficult to draw a conclusion.
With Nanaya's reminder, Washimine would naturally not throw money into the financial field.
In fact, after the bursting of the bubble economy in the last century, Japan has become more afraid of the ropes after being bitten once.
It's not that Japan's financial industry is no longer developing, but that most of Japan's non-financial companies are instinctively wary of finance.
It can be said that with the success of "Inferno", Washimine Entertainment's status in Hollywood has been further enhanced.
After the huge success of "Inferno" in March, the North American movie box office in April seemed a bit lackluster.
This is normal as major film companies are preparing for the upcoming summer season in May.
Although there are endless promotions for various movies, not many movies are released.
Even if there are any, most of them are small and medium-budget movies, which cannot pose any threat to "Inferno".
So, even though the box office of "Inferno" is lower week by week.
But the enemies it faced were even more formidable. Under such circumstances, "Inferno" actually won the North American weekly box office championship for four consecutive weeks.
It was not until the release of the Sino-US co-produced kung fu film "The Forbidden Kingdom" on April 18 that "Inferno" was pulled down from the throne.
It's not because this movie is so great, it's just that North American audiences are really tired of "Inferno".
This kung fu movie with a completely different style makes movie fans feel that it is a good change of taste.
As for the movie "The Forbidden Kingdom" itself, it is still full of Western people's understanding of Kung Fu.
Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to describe it as a distortion.
But what can we do? Who asked North American audiences to buy into this?
Cultural barriers are not something that can be ignored just because you want to.
Eastern movies made for Westerners will definitely not be liked by Eastern audiences.
If "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" had not won an Oscar, it would probably have been criticized to death in China.
If we really make a kung fu movie that Chinese audiences like, I guess no one in North America would watch it.
Nanaya could already foresee the criticism of this movie in China.
But he could understand it, after all, he was also one of those who criticized the movie back then.
If Nanaya wasn't a Chinese in his previous life, he probably wouldn't want to touch on Chinese themes in Fate.
Looking back at all the Hollywood movies over the past few decades, all of them that were highly praised and had box office success in China, without exception, did not mention China at all.
Ignoring it, or pretending that China does not exist, is actually the best way to enter the market there.
Whether it is private or official, it will be much easier.
As for "The Forbidden Kingdom", the film may not be received very well in North America.
This is determined by the audience of the film itself.
Although the film features two kung fu superstars, Chan and Lee, it is positioned as a children's film in Hollywood.
So its tragic fate was doomed from the very beginning.
Although it won the weekly box office championship in the third week of April, it suffered a sharp drop in the following week.
In comparison, although "Inferno" no longer has much stamina, its daily box office revenue is still quite stable.
You have to know that this is already the fifth week that "Inferno" has been released.
At this time, "Inferno" has already earned a total of 453 million US dollars in North America.
This result is already the second highest in North American film history.
It's a pity that facing the huge iceberg of "Titanic", Nanaya estimated that he had no chance to touch it.
At least that's the case with the movie "Inferno".
After all, the most competitive summer season is coming, and as an old film, "Inferno" may be abandoned at any time by the market that is fickle.
However, it is different from the historical 2008 summer season.
In Nanaya's previous life, the darling of the film market in May this year was "Iron Man", and with Nanaya's intervention, this movie was released during the Christmas period two years ago.
Of course, this does not mean that there will be no heavyweight movies in May. "Sex and the City" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" are both highly anticipated movies in May.
However, the work that replaced "Iron Man" as the first to appear in the 2008 summer season was not them, but a work that was originally supposed to be released in late May.
Because of the disappearance of "Iron Man", it was directly advanced to May 2nd by Paramount.
And this movie is the fourth film in the famous "Indiana Jones" series, "Crystal Skull".
This is a new work 19 years after the third film in the series was released.
This alone is enough to arouse movie fans' great enthusiasm for watching the movie.
Just like the time that has passed in real life, 19 years have passed since Dr. Indiana Jones' last adventure in the movie.
This time the enemy he faced was no longer the German Nazis, but Soviet agents.
The stage of this adventure has also shifted to Peru, where Dr. Indiana Jones has to overcome numerous obstacles to find the legendary treasure called the "Crystal Skull" left behind by aliens.
Two of the most famous directors of the 80s joined forces, with Steven Spielberg directing and George Lucas writing the screenplay and serving as producer.
Harrison Ford, who plays Dr. Jones, and Cate Blanchett, who plays the Queen of Elves, star in the film.
From any perspective, the cast of this movie is perfect.
It's a pity that this movie gives the audience the feeling of an apple left outdoors for three months - rotten.