Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 738 The Magical Top Gun

   "Why did you return to the top of the box office charts?"

   Ronald quickly called his agent Richard and had a conference call with Nisita who was far away in Philadelphia.

   The box office of a normal movie is stable within a week or two after it is released. If the box office of a newly released movie declines rapidly, it is possible to return to the first place.

   But "Top Gun" has been in theaters in America for nineteen weeks, although the weekly box office depletion has been slow, with a steady decline of only about 5%. But all of a sudden, like a week of steroids, there is another burst of vitality, which is really unexpected.

   The last time "Top Gun" topped the box office chart was at the end of June. Stallone's "Cobra" was overtaken by "Top Gun" for three weeks after overtaking "Top Gun".

   After that, his own "Longwei Kid 2" is the first in the succession list.

   "Longwei Kid 2" dominated the box office chart for 5 weeks, and was succeeded by good friend Jim Cameron's "Alien 2", which won the first place in the box office chart.

  The entire summer was completely dominated by Ronald and Cameron, two outstanding graduates of Roger Coleman Film University.

   "Alien 2" also sat around the throne, being driven down by the sci-fi horror film "The Fly" starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.

   Just when everyone thought that the summer movie of 1986 was dominated by action movies and sci-fi horror movies, a movie that no one expected came out.

  This is a movie based on Stephen King's novel that tells the story of young children. It's called "StandByMe". The theme song is the song of the same name sung by black singer BenE.King.

  The film features four child actors as the protagonists, telling an adventure in a small town during the summer vacation.

   This movie was made with a small cost, without much marketing investment. Distributor Columbia, which used word-of-mouth marketing, opened in only 15 theaters in New York and Los Angeles for the first two weeks. Accumulate word of mouth in newspapers and on TV.

When    officially opened, there were only 800 theaters showing it.

   But the audience liked these four very cute and pitiful child actors very much. The box office climbed to the first place in the second week, and the "Fly Man" was lacking in stamina.

  Many mothers looked at these four little actors so cute and called their friends to see them. Little Fat Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland from an acting family. Of course, the mother's favorite is the hero, River Phoenix, with short hair, big eyes, and a childish face, which makes every mother want to have such a lovely son.

   "Walk With Me" stayed at the top of the list for three weeks, until the official end of the summer season, Labor Day in America, and it still had a lot of stamina.

   They also retained their top spot in the first week of September. The new releases in the off-season are all small productions, which are not a threat to them enough.

   But just the second week after Labor Day, no one knew what was going on, "Top Gun's box office jumped 10% and regained the top spot.

   "Did Paramount add more theaters?"

   Ronald decided to make sense of this anomalous change.

The box office trend of this "Top Gun" is particularly abnormal, with very little weekly exhaustion, and long-term screenings can remain in the top three at the box office for a long time, new films come and go, leaving only Tom Cruise and F- 14 Tomcats on screen.

   "No, I called Jerry Bruckheimer, Paramount didn't add theaters, and he couldn't figure it out."

"But when it was released for nearly 20 weeks, the box office suddenly soared by 10%, and there were four new top films in the middle?" Ronald began to wonder if it was the off-season in September, the new film was too bad, and the audience went back to watch it again. "Top Gun"?

   "This is also impossible, Longwei Kid 2, Alien 2, and this one with me, there is no trend of rising box office." On the phone, Nisita denied Ronald's guess.

   "Okay, that's all, I'll go to the cinema and see if I can find something."

   Ronald stopped the clueless meeting, called Bud, and the two went to an ordinary movie theater to see what happened.

   "Are we going to buy tickets?" asked Bud.

   "Buy two to accompany me, let's go see why this movie is so good. Pick the one later."

   Ronald continued to wander around the box office box office, listening to the chatter of the audience.

   "What are you looking at? Accompanying me, I heard that it looks good."

   "I've already seen it, it's suitable to watch with my family, and I want to watch Top Gun again."

   "Didn't you see it many times? Still want to see it?"

   "Sorry, if only America's navy pilots were really like Lone Rangers, would we still suffer from this kind of cowardice?"

   "I heard that there are still many F-14 Tomcats in Persia. I don't know if we can beat them."

   "You can definitely get it. It's better to let the Lone Rangers kill their fighters, and then airdrop a Rambo to Beirut, so that the hostages can be rescued."

   "What happened in Beirut?" Ronald asked the conductor who was busy preparing for a new movie and hadn't seen the news for a long time.

"Don't you know? Our national security adviser personally went to Lebanon to negotiate, hoping that the ... armed forces there would be able to release the last other hostages held. What is the difference between this and the previous commander's handling of Persian hostages? It's all negotiation, I don't know. How much money was given to those..."

  The conductor is a white male, and he said swearingly, "You might as well watch Top Gun, I think America needs a Lone Ranger and a Rambo."

   It turns out that as early as 1983, ten Americas were kidnapped by the armed forces of Lebanon. Last year, a lawyer was released for unknown reasons, and another hostage was released this year, so the National Security Adviser of the commander-in-chief went to negotiate in person, hoping to release more hostages.

   These hostages, unlike the Persian embassy of those days, were captured under TV cameras, nor were they kidnapped during the election. So the domestic reaction is much smaller.

   But the public has been hearing intermittently in the media that the hostages have not been released.

   Looking at the situation now, it seems that this time the National Security Adviser went to negotiate with terrorists. All of a sudden, the people's emotions that had been suppressed for a long time were released.

  The economy has gotten better, unemployment has dropped, and taxes have been cut. Every day the people hear the commander's tough talk about the alliance, and the science fiction-like missile defense system nicknamed "Star Wars". They see that they can't use advanced weapons to rescue the hostages against some local armed forces that only have AK47s. Very disappointed.

   This disappointment was vented to the cinema, and more audiences went into the cinema, wanting to have more fun on the screen, watching the Lone Ranger driving the F-14 and laying down the footage of the Union's MiG-28. It's better to reduce some of the dissatisfaction with reality.

Ronald, who wanted to understand the reason, immediately called the producer and distributor of "Top Gun" after watching "Walk With Me" and asked them if it was possible to continue to invest some additional marketing expenses to give "Top Gun". The box office of "Ling Yun" can be further boosted.

   "Ronald, I've discussed with Don, and I'm willing to give a sum of money to subsidize a new marketing campaign. But we have to make sure first, Mr. National Security Advisor, how many chances are there to save the hostages?

  If they continue to be so weak, I think audiences will continue to go to the cinema to experience phantom fighter pilots vs bad guys. "

"Ronald, don't you have something to do with the White House? Is it convenient to inquire? If there is a rescue plan, it will be even better. If you blow up those bad guys, the audience will be more enthusiastic." Don Simpson grabbed the phone. , pitched Ronald's idea aloud.

   "I actually have something to do with them. I'll see if I can find out through some channels."

   Ronald put down the phone and dialed George Jr. in Texas.

   "It's just such a thing. It's inconvenient for us to know about further actions. We want to see if it's worth arranging a small marketing push for 'Top Gun'."

   "It's easy, I'll see what I can do. Is your 'Nanny Adventure' sure to be put into the third phase of the screen fund?" Little George is still very proud of the screen fund, which is one of his few business projects that don't lose money.

   "Sure, Mr. Eisner will take it all into consideration."

   After half an hour, Ronald was at the phone and finally got a call from George.

   "Ronald, let me confirm with you, who asked you to make this call?"

   "It's the two producers of Top Gun... Don and Jerry."

   "Okay, it's two producers." There seemed to be a connected phone on George's side, and he was relaying Ronald's answer.

   "Tell your little friend, don't worry about this, and let him make a good movie."

   On the other end of the phone is Little George's father, the current Deputy Commander.

   "Don't do this, scaring little Ronald." The deputy commander's wife, Barbara, listened to her husband's tone, a little dissatisfied, and picked up the phone to tell little George.

   "This matter is top secret. It's not good for Ronald Jr. to not ask more about this kind of thing."

   "Oh...I understand. Thank you Barbara and the Vice Commander for me." After hearing George's message, Ronald generally understood the Vice Commander's attitude. It appears that the White House doesn't want this to make waves in the news media.

   The "Top Gun" team, who had just had an idea, died down immediately.

   By the weekend, Paramount's "Top Gun" and Columbia's "Stay With Me" both fell sharply, continuing to rank second and third.

   A new king appeared in September, the off-season at the box office.

   "Crocodile Dundee", with the opening scale of 879 theaters in the first weekend, smashed the box office of 8 million US dollars at once, surpassing the next two films and three times the box office, showing a brand new fangs.

   (end of this chapter)