Chapter 392: Comparison

The $109 million opening weekend for *New Pirates of the Caribbean* took many in Hollywood by surprise; the result was beyond expectations.

If one ignores everything else and looks only at the performance of Cao Yang's previous film, *Inception*, the $109 million for *New Pirates of the Caribbean* is actually normal, as *Inception* grossed over $98 million in its first three days.

It is also normal for a new film to have a slightly higher box office than the previous one.

However, why does *New Pirates of the Caribbean* have the word "New" in it?

That is because the previous version of *Pirates of the Caribbean* flopped. At the time, the CEO of Disney was still Michael Eisner, and because the results were so poor, he directly shelved this major Disney IP.

As everyone knows, rebooting a film carries risks, even greater risks than an original film, as people always subconsciously compare the reboot to the previous installment.

A moment's thought reveals that the previous film must have flopped to have been shelved. If everyone thinks there is little difference from the previous film, or even feels it is inferior, then it is doomed to flop.

Even if it is considered more interesting than the previous film, it is only better than a flop. If it doesn't subvert expectations or imbue the new film with "stature," it could still flop.

This is the difficulty of rebooting a film.

The reason Robert Iger rebooted this film after taking office was also the result of careful deliberation; he had the intention of competing with Michael Eisner—

You said I wasn't good enough and couldn't be CEO? If I succeed with a film you failed with and shelved, doesn't that prove your judgment was poor? Then those words saying I wasn't suitable for CEO would have no authority and be pure bullshit.

This is also another reason why he fully supported *New Pirates of the Caribbean* and was so excited after the box office results came out.

The sky-high box office of *New Pirates of the Caribbean* didn't just make Robert Iger happy; Jeff Robinov, President of Warner Bros. Pictures, while secretly sighing that Robert had gotten lucky, was also somewhat happy.

Currently, Warner Bros. is collaborating with Cao Yang on two films, one of which, *Batman: The Dark Knight*, directed by Nolan with Cao Yang as producer and screenwriter, is currently in post-production.

There is also a Batman spin-off film that Cao Yang is to direct, *Joker*, which has already been greenlit and is expected to begin filming at the end of February.

Cao Yang's success once again gave Jeff Robinov more confidence.

The first *Batman* film directed by Nolan, *Batman Begins*, was also a reboot. When all is said and done, the popularity of Batman is certainly much greater than that of *Pirates of the Caribbean*, and it also possesses a larger fan base.

It was precisely because that film didn't make money at the box office that Warner wanted to change directors.

Since Cao Yang could make the rebooted *New Pirates of the Caribbean* so successful, the second *Batman* film he is producing and writing will undoubtedly have a greater probability of success.

The spin-off film *Joker*, which he is directing personally, will also be easier to succeed.

Over the past few days, Cao Yang has received many congratulatory calls.

Warner CEO Barry Meyer, Warner Bros. Pictures President Jeff Robinov, Tom Rothman who has been promoted to Global Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics President Michael Barker, Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice, and so on.

Han Zong of China Film Group, Hou Yuan of the Beijing Film Academy, Xie Xiaojing who also serves as the head of the Youth Film Studio, as well as Old Tian and others, have all called Cao Yang.

In addition to congratulating him on the box office explosion of *New Pirates of the Caribbean* in North America, they also told Cao Yang about the box office situation domestically.

Domestically, it was also released on the 21st. Although Cao Yang didn't return to the country for promotion, he had Duan Yihong and Jude Law go to China for promotion a week before the release.

Jude Law is known in China as "Jiu Hua." He is currently in his prime, mainly because he hasn't gained weight or gone bald yet, and he has a thick head of long hair; his looks are no worse than Leonardo DiCaprio's in his youth.

Although he is not as famous in China as Depp or DiCaprio, and his box office appeal is certainly not as strong as Depp or DiCaprio's, there are still a great many people who like him.

Duan Yihong is now considered one of the few people in China who possesses great fame in Hollywood. In this day and age, an actor who can make a name for himself in Hollywood is automatically classified as top-tier in China.

With Jude Law and Duan Yihong promoting it in China, plus the fact that it is a film directed by Cao Yang, the promotional effort was already sufficient.

To put it bluntly, given Cao Yang's current influence, the purpose of promoting a film he directed in China is not to create some gimmick, nor is it to focus on promoting the content of the film.

The main purpose is to let people know that a film directed by Cao Yang is about to be released; that is enough.

This scheduling slot in the US is called the Christmas slot, while this slot in China is now called the He Sui slot.

Ever since the He Sui slot was made popular by Feng Xiaogang, it has now become one of the main slots for blockbuster competition, and every year there are bound to be a few blockbusters "going to war" during the He Sui slot.

The competition this year is also very fierce. Cao Yang is collaborating with Feng Xiaogang; *Assembly*, directed by Feng Xiaogang, was released on December 1st, and *The Warlords*, with a production cost of $40 million, was released on December 12th.

Added to that is the co-production *New Pirates of the Caribbean*, making the competition in this year's domestic He Sui slot exceptionally fierce.

Although the domestic box office market is getting better and better, major slots like the He Sui slot are no longer like they used to be, where as long as one film explodes, it will siphon off the box office of other films.

However, compared to the US Christmas slot and box office market, the domestic market still cannot compare.

The US Christmas slot can accommodate the explosion of *I Am Legend* starring Will Smith and *New Pirates of the Caribbean*, and still allow *National Treasure: Book of Secrets* and *Alvin and the Chipmunks* to have very good box office results; the domestic market certainly cannot do that at present.

Therefore, with *Assembly* being considered a major hit, it directly affected the box office of *The Warlords*, which was released 12 days later.

From its release on December 1st to the present, a little over three weeks, *Assembly* has already achieved a box office of over 310 million, and it is absolutely impossible to reach the 400 million that Feng Xiaogang wanted to aim for.

If nothing unexpected happens, it would be good to have 330 million.

The main reason is that the release of *New Pirates of the Caribbean* affected not only the unlucky *The Warlords*, which was caught in the middle, but also affected the box office of *Assembly*.

Of course, the impact is actually mutual.

The release of *The Warlords* will certainly divert the box office of *Assembly*, and the "harvesting" of *Assembly* plus *The Warlords* over twenty days will certainly affect the audience's enthusiasm for watching movies.

After all, this era is not a dozen years later; watching a movie is just the price of two cups of milk tea. Nowadays, the price of movie tickets is still a heavy burden relative to wages.

This led to the fact that although *New Pirates of the Caribbean* was also a box office hit, and even had a first-day box office nearly 10 million higher than *Assembly*, it did not break the first-day box office record.

By the way, the first-day box office record is held by *Inception*, directed by Cao Yang, which took in a little over 40 million on its first day of release, which dropped everyone's jaws.

That's right, a first-day box office of a little over 40 million was a result that could make all filmmakers drop their jaws in 2006.

On the first day of *Inception*'s release, the overall market even set a single-day box office record, with the daily market breaking 50 million, creating the highest single-day box office record in domestic history.

However, this overall market box office record did not hold, because on the day *New Pirates of the Caribbean* was released, the market went straight to 55 million, once again creating a new single-day market box office record.

The first-day box office of *New Pirates of the Caribbean* was "only" over 39 million, and a host of films released in late November and December, such as *The Warlords*, *Assembly*, and *Crossed Lines*, carved up the remaining approximately 16 million in box office.

*The Warlords*, which had been released for exactly ten days, had a box office of only a little over 7 million that day, and its total box office had just broken 60 million.

This is still because the word-of-mouth for *The Warlords* is okay, and it has big stars like Jet Li and Andy Lau; otherwise, the impact would only be greater.

Affected by *New Pirates of the Caribbean*, it would be good if the total box office of this film could break 100 million, but it is estimated to be a bit difficult; after all, the impact has just begun.

Most of the domestic reports on *New Pirates of the Caribbean* used the word "regret."