Chapter 1306: Staying Out
——Punching bag.
It is too much to describe "Nuan Nuan Containing Light" in this way. Whether it is the top management of the academy or Sony Columbia, they do not really mean to attack and exclude "Nuan Nuan Containing Light". After all, Charlie Kaufman is innocent.
To be precise, this is challenging Anson, a challenge that Leonardo DiCaprio is also facing:
The challenges that must be faced after a work creates a history-making gesture and writes an unsurpassable peak and crowns a superstar in one fell swoop. Is that a one-off?
"One-Hit-Wonder", a one-hit wonder, like a comet.
This situation exists in both music and movies. A work is so popular that it becomes purple, but it is only this time, and the person will never be found again.
Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone" is a classic example.
So, are Leonardo and Anson a one-off?
Leonardo's situation is that after "Titanic", he filmed several films but all performed poorly under the pressure. Then he disappeared into the jungle and exiled himself until "Gangs of New York" began to return in full force, trying to Prove that you are not just a fleeting comet.
Now, each of Leonardo's works receives countless attention and carries huge pressure. Along with the expectations, there are countless provocations and doubts, and different voices from inside and outside the industry are bustlingly intertwined.
The same goes for Anson——
Of course, it's slightly different.
After "Spider-Man", Anson continued to deliver strong output. "Cat and Mouse", "Elephant" and "Butterfly Effect" were all successful. The box office and word-of-mouth were all red, and he even won awards. His career has skyrocketed.
Without even giving Hollywood breathing space, Anson is already standing at the top of the pyramid, with a powerful superstar posture and a posture of being crowned the number one person in Hollywood. Naturally, the treatment and requirements are different.
After all, there is only one "Hollywood No. 1", and that position is not easy to sit in. A game of power is going on.
For others, the North American box office of 100 million is a happy event worthy of celebration; but for Anson, it is just a basic thing, and people expect more.
Coupled with the people who are fanning the flames and adding fuel to the flames, the atmosphere becomes tense——
"Warmth contains light", neither early nor late, just hitting the muzzle of the gun.
The envious, jealous, critical and critical gazes of the academy’s top brass, Sony Columbia, and others are no exception:
They are not stupid.
They know that Anson is gaining momentum, and they also know that Anson’s market appeal and influence are booming. At this moment, it is irrational to have a head-on collision and provoke Anson. A backlash is a high probability event. If you are not careful, you will be embarrassed. Now in a predicament of no place to be ashamed.
If you plan to fight Anson head-on, the best strategy is to seek it out slowly.
I chose "Warm and Inner Light" precisely because of Charlie Kaufman, this geeky screenwriter whose unbridled imagination often makes it difficult for people to keep up.
Although it is not a drowsy European movie, it is still a unique work full of imagination and jaw-dropping.
The audience does not object to such works, but they cannot understand them. However, unlike brain-burning science fiction movies, they do not give people the joy and pleasure of solving puzzles. Therefore, watching movies has become a math test in middle school. Same——
It turned into a pain.
I'm afraid not many viewers are willing to go into the cinema and be fools, opening their wallets for a movie that they can't watch or understand.
It is precisely because of such innate factors that Charlie Kaufman's screenwriting works have always been difficult to open up the market, and even if a superstar joins, the effect will be limited.
In other words, judging from the cards, Anson Wood partners with Kate Winslet and adds Charlie Kaufman. This is a very attractive combination, and curiosity is ready to arouse.
However, the actual box office market performance of the movie may face severe challenges, and the difficulty of hitting the box office is no less difficult than that of "Elephant".
All of this makes "Nuan Nuan Containing Light" a target, and it has evolved into a wrestling field of different forces amidst the turbulent undercurrents of Hollywood.
Eyes gathered one after another. Silently, these sights and sounds turned into a wave, building momentum for the propaganda of "Warmth and Light Within" and spreading out in a mighty way.
The wind has risen.
However, all the excitement belongs to others, and the real parties involved are calm and restrained, seemingly not feeling the undercurrent of Hollywood at all.
It’s not just Anson, Kate, and Charlie, but Focus Features too.
Focus Features, to be precise, was founded just last year and is part of Universal Pictures, and "Warm and Bright" is one of the first projects they produced.
However, Focus Features is not a group of newbies——
Their predecessor was Good Machine Pictures.
Founded in 1991, it started as Ang Lee's "promoter" with less than half a million US dollars. In the past ten years, in addition to contracting the production and distribution of all Ang Lee's works, it has also produced a series of films by the Coen brothers, Pedro Almodovar ( Pedro-Almodovar's works, Oscar nominations and a lot of experience.
Universal Pictures took a fancy to the experience of Good Machine Pictures, so it is now acquiring and merging it to create Focus Pictures, which specializes in producing and distributing independent films, especially artistic works aimed at the awards season.
Faced with the wave of disruption in Hollywood, Focus Features remains unfazed.
Check out the 16-9 book bar and see the correct version!
Everything, step by step.
At the very beginning, Focus Features also had ambitions, and they must admit——
Anson's appeal and influence are heart-warming, and perhaps this can become an important driving force for "Warm and Inner Light" to attract audiences into the cinema.
However, their rich experience and accurate judgment still allowed them to stop at the cliff.
Just look at "Elephant" and you will know that it is precisely because of Anson's strong appeal that they should exercise more restraint; otherwise, the vast number of viewers would enter the cinema excitedly because of Anson, but they would end up cursing the movie out of anger because they could not understand the movie. The box office market suffered a backlash.
That's not worth the loss.
The correct way is to identify the target audience, accurately position and strike accurately, rely on the word-of-mouth spread of the target audience to form a virtuous cycle, wait for "Warm and Containing Light" to form a word-of-mouth foundation, and then rely on Anson's appeal to open up the situation, looking forward to... Have a little blowout.
For "Warm and Inner Light", Focus Features' positioning is very precise:
The North American box office grossed US$30 million.
They don’t expect a box office hit, nor do they expect the movie to quickly turn a profit. They expect the movie’s reputation and feedback to slowly spread, laying the foundation for the movie to win a place at the year-end awards ceremony.
Of course, it is not easy for Charlie Kaufman's works to receive Oscar nominations. It may take some luck to replicate the trend of "adapted screenplays" last year.
All in all, Focus Features has a clear idea.
Then, what happened before us happened, and the uproar outside once again proved that Focus Features' judgment was correct.
If they were ambitious from the beginning, the supporting publicity strategy would not be the same, and now they may be involved in the storm of interested people.
By then, "Nuan Nuan Nei Guang" may face a tragic failure.
(End of chapter)