Chapter 365: New

In 2009, Xu Can completely monopolized the North American summer movie market.

Starting with "Iron Man 2: The Extraordinary Dragon," followed by "Captain America: The Howling Commandos," "The Hangover," "Interstellar," and "Lei Shen."

From May until the end of August, every box office champion was a Star River Pictures film!

This film company, established for only two short years, single-handedly crushed the six giants: Disney, Paramount, Fox, Warner, Columbia, and Universal!

Among them, Columbia was considered lucky; due to "Spider-Man," they maintained a deep cooperation with Xu Can.

Xu Can's Star River Pictures focused on film production, similar to Legendary Pictures and New Line Cinema, all being companies dedicated solely to production.

In the previous life, even though Legendary Pictures produced masterpieces like "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Dark Knight" trilogy, "Pacific Rim," "Godzilla," and "300 Spartans,"

they still needed to sign distribution agreements with Sony Columbia or other giants, relying on the six giants' networks and theaters for release.

Without cooperating with the six giants, they would have to negotiate terms with theaters one by one, and the theaters might not even be willing; the complexity of the intermediate steps increased exponentially compared to making the film.

Xu Can's Star River Entertainment was the same; as a new player, they initially had absolutely no distribution channels.

To get films released quickly, they reached a long-term cooperation agreement with Sony Columbia.

Xu Can's relationship with Howard Stringer, the Chairman of Sony North America, was good enough that the distribution revenue-sharing ratio was pushed to the minimum; Sony basically made no profit.

The goal was to tie themselves to Xu Can's ship.

Howard Stringer actually foresaw that Hollywood's creative ability would decline year by year in the future, gradually being unable to produce sufficiently outstanding original works.

For instance, the golden age of Hollywood in 1994, where masterpieces erupted like a geyser, was gone forever.

In the future, it would either be film universes adapting IPs, or geniuses constantly creating new IPs,

and coincidentally, both types of creators pointed to the same person—Xu Can!

As long as they tied themselves to Xu Can, they would have profits to make!

Columbia took the risk of distributing at a loss, unconditionally helping Xu Can's films reach more theaters.

Now it seems, Stringer won the bet.

Xu Can eats the meat, they drink the soup; simply drinking the soup is enough to fill them up.

Otherwise, films produced by Sony itself would find it hard to gain an advantage among the giants.

Look at the results of this summer season: in four months, nearly

As soon as one film ended its run, another quickly took its place!

They simply gave no other giants any chance!

Stringer even heard rumors that executives from Disney, Warner, and Fox were all trying to contact Xu Can,

hoping Xu Can would cooperate with them for distribution,

to which Howard Stringer expressed contempt.

"Can they concede profits to the extent I did? Can they unconditionally obey Xu Can? Can they make the decision to do a loss-making deal?"

Stringer believed that these profit-driven, arrogant guys could not possibly move Xu Can.

To cooperate with Xu Can, one must first give him enough respect and treat him as a true friend.

Now it seems, back when Xu Can was just an actor and "Spider-Man" hadn't yet exploded globally, Stringer started wooing Xu Can,

this was simply the most brilliant decision he had ever made in his life!

Watching the summer season end and the market cool down into the Halloween release slot,

Xu Can still occupied the throne of the box office champion!

"How much was their opening weekend box office again?"

A Sony executive smiled awkwardly, "One hundred and six million, Mr. Stringer."

"Wait, how much?"

Even Howard Stringer, who never underestimated Xu Can, was stunned.

"This kind of commercial popcorn movie, over one hundred million in the opening weekend?"

"Yes, both the media and ordinary audiences have excellent word-of-mouth. Thirty-two million on the first day, and the box office did not drop in the following two days."

Xu Can's films, with a first-day box office sufficient to rival other films' opening weekends, one day equals three days!

In this colder autumn slot, Xu Can still dominated Hollywood alone!

"Hollywood is really going to bear the surname Xu," Howard Stringer shook his head and smiled bitterly.

In the previous life, the original "Pacific Rim" received unsatisfactory reviews and box office results in North America.

The first week was thirty-eight million three hundred thousand dollars, ranking only third on the box office chart, even worse than Adam Sandler's mindless comedy "Grown Ups 2."

There were multiple reasons, such as North America gradually losing interest in this type of sci-fi mecha film in 2013,

additionally, the male and female leads and other supporting actors were not A-list stars, all being unfamiliar faces.

Although the investment was one hundred and ninety million in cost, special effects funding was still expensive, and the studio had no more funds to produce battle scenes.

Of the four mechas, only Gipsy Danger was showing off; the other mechas were just taking beatings.

The original "Pacific Rim" met with coldness in North America, but was an extraordinary hit in Korea, Mexico, Russia, Taiwan, Australia, and the Chinese-speaking market!

Especially in the Huaxiaguan market, the first day was fifty-six million RMB, the week was two hundred and eighty million, even creating an excellent single-day result of one hundred and eighteen million.

This is enough to prove the film itself was sufficiently thrilling; Huaxiaguan audiences are not fond of Hollywood stars and do not excessively pursue big stars appearing.

Parallel world, now.

The new "Pacific Rim" has Xu Can, this box office harvester, paired with popular star Scarlett Johansson,

plus the consistently good reputation of Xu Can's films; North American film fans unconditionally trust Xu Can,

on the first day of release, scenes of people queuing to grab tickets appeared in theaters across North America; this is already a tradition of Xu Can's films.

Even if one does not follow news about the film's release, just looking at the queues outside the theater doors, if the number of people queuing is too large, without thinking, it must be Xu Can's film.

Facing such an explosively popular scene, "Pacific Rim" reaching a result of one hundred and six million dollars in the opening weekend is very normal.

Not only were the box office results outstanding, but the reputation of "Pacific Rim" naturally did not hold Xu Can back.

The film received strong support from many media outlets and critics, who praised the movie's powerful visual effects and this exciting mecha universe.

"'Pacific Rim' is the most spectacular visual effects film of the year. As befits Xu Can's work, this is also the best monster movie I have ever seen!"

"Movie Online," a professional film review website, wrote critic Peter Hammond as follows.

"The Hollywood Reporter": "'Pacific Rim' is exactly the kind of sci-fi blockbuster you hope to see. Xu Can spared no effort to satisfy this demand of yours; he pushed the battles between mechas and monsters to the extreme. The entire film is high-energy, blasting your brain from start to finish!"

"The New York Times": "'Pacific Rim' has thoroughly whetted the appetites of monster tokusatsu fans and Japanese mecha enthusiasts. This is a true mega-blockbuster; the thrill hits like a hurricane. Never doubt Xu Can's films!"

"Pacific Rim" has no deeper truths, explores no profound issues of society or human nature; it is purely Xu Can's hobby project, a completely commercial film.

Even so, it still maintains a high score of 8.3/10 on IMDb! Rotten Tomatoes index 85%, MTC 82 points!

As a commercial film, its scores even surpassed many art-house films! And it received unanimous praise from critics across the United States.

This made the other major Hollywood giants drop their glasses in shock!

Especially Paramount's CEO Brian Luo Bin, who had previously declared publicly before the media that Xu Can's film was a plagiarism of "Transformers," and that it could not match them in either reputation or box office.

However, "Pacific Rim," which he had disparaged in every way, struck back at "Transformers" in reputation, reviews, and box office.

As an IP that Paramount took pride in, "Transformers" only achieved 67.6 million US dollars in box office during its opening weekend, with an IMDb rating of 7/10,

while "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" was crushed by "Iron Man 2" and "Captain America" during the summer season,

Paramount CEO Brian Luo Bin now looks like a clown.

……【】

Besides the North American market, the new "Pacific Rim" was as hot in the Huaxia market as in his previous life,