Chapter 129: Why It Is Popular

The North American film market was booming. With new movies released every week, it was hard to please everyone; not everyone would like the same movie. To attract cinephiles and general audiences alike to theaters, pre- and post-release promotion was critical.

To a certain extent, promotion existed to pique the curiosity and interest of potential audiences, drawing them into theaters to contribute to the box office.

Duke's willingness to step in front of the curtain and trade insults with film critics was aimed precisely at creating a hot topic to boost promotion.

The incredibly low professional ratings for Independence Day contrasted sharply with its exceptional audience word-of-mouth and box office numbers, creating a bizarre spectacle. If this topic blew up, it would inevitably spark widespread curiosity—why were so many people flocking to a movie that critics rated so poorly? Just how captivating, or how terrible, was young Duke Rosenberg's film to trigger such massive controversy? Why was the director making such a rare public attack against professional critics—was it just to fight back, or did he have absolute confidence in his work?

This had been one of Explosion Bay's favorite promotional tactics in his past life: the more fiercely he fought with critics, the more audiences actually walked into the theaters.

Although the internet could not yet be used for practical promotion, Warner and Fox, along with the media platforms behind them, were powerful enough to easily detonate a trending topic.

As for the actual results, they were best reflected in the statistics.

On Tuesday, July 5, as the Independence Day holiday ended, all films currently in theaters inevitably suffered a box office drop. The single-day box office for Independence Day plummeted out of the tens of millions, dropping to $9.27 million!

Duke appeared on Fox's program that very Tuesday night. This show not only entered countless homes through the fourth-largest television network in the country, but it was also hyped up the next day by numerous media outlets under Time Warner and News Group. By going to war directly with the critics who were still attacking him and Independence Day, he attracted the attention of a large number of eager onlookers. Many curious people also walked into theaters, wanting to see exactly what this fiercely debated movie was all about.

On Wednesday, despite it still being a workday, the box office for Independence Day saw a slight uptick, pulling in $12.53 million for the day! By Thursday, this number climbed slightly again, reaching $13.49 million!

Afterward, a set of survey data was passed to Duke. Nearly twenty percent of the randomly interviewed audience members originally had no plans to watch Independence Day; they had walked into the theater purely out of curiosity.

The promotional hype had completely achieved the results Duke wanted.

Having been in theaters for a week, the film grossed a total of $116.93 million in North America. In addition to successfully breaking the hundred-million mark, it also set a brand new cinematic record—becoming the fastest movie in North America to surpass $100 million in just six days.

With the strong box office performance of Independence Day, Independence Day Studio and the distributors now had the capital to demand additional screenings from the theater chains. The three major theater chains—AMG, Regal Entertainment, and United Artists—also promised that a portion of the screens opening up this week would be scheduled for Independence Day.

The theater chains weren't stupid. Independence Day had shown a strong rebound over the last two days, and its trending topic had been hyped to explosive levels. Duke and the critics were practically at each other's throats. Only an idiot wouldn't expand screenings for such a massive hit to increase revenue.

An addition of nearly two hundred theaters was enough to make Independence Day Studio laugh out loud, but other movies—especially the new releases this week—were inevitably impacted.

"This is Columbia, I'm Ralph..."

In an office at Sony Columbia Pictures, Ralph, the deputy head of the distribution department, was bellowing into his phone. "Why have the theaters AMG promised for The Shawshank Redemption been reduced by forty?! We have an agreement! Yes, it's a floating agreement, but we're in our opening week, and they are already in their second week..."

Hearing the perfunctory apologies from the other end, Ralph unwillingly hung up the phone and dialed the number for the Regal Theater Chain Company. After another round of arguing, he ultimately came up empty-handed.

After dialing the numbers of several theater chain companies in a row, Ralph failed to get the results he wanted. The chain reaction brought on by the massive success of Independence Day was fully on display.

Even though everyone thought this would be one of the biggest hits of the Summer Season, its popularity far exceeded expectations. Its record-breaking opening week in North America even surpassed Sony Columbia's highest estimate of $45 million. If the film's trajectory had been like that of Jurassic Park, coupled with the difference in their target audiences, it wouldn't have had much impact on their movie this week at all.

Now, it was hard to say. Duke Rosenberg and the film critics had sparked a war over Independence Day. Relying on their respective supporting media, both sides were waging a highly eye-catching battle of public opinion. This caused many people who originally weren't potential viewers of Independence Day to buy tickets and walk into theaters. Moreover, this momentum had carried on until now, bound to deal a heavy blow to all concurrent movies this weekend.

Because nearly 200 theaters had been snatched away by Independence Day, The Shawshank Redemption could only open in North America with 1,900 theaters. Although he had a bad feeling about it and didn't think their company's film could compete with even a second-week Independence Day, Ralph believed that The Shawshank Redemption crushing the one-month-old Forrest Gump and the three-week-old The Lion King shouldn't be a problem.

After all, it had received unprecedentedly high scores in the critic-exclusive screenings, and the audience word-of-mouth from the June test screenings wasn't bad either...

Having pulled off several large-scale promotions in a row and trading long-distance fire with critics, Duke felt even more exhausted than when he was shooting the movie. However, he was in a great mood. After all, the feeling of being able to fire back when others trashed him was quite nice, and the promotional effect brought by this mudslinging was also excellent. The contrarian rise in weekday box office sales was the best proof.

Such promotional hype also brought high attention. Paparazzi were even staking out the entrance to his apartment community in North Hollywood. Fortunately, he was just a director, not a highly watched star actor, so the number of paparazzi was extremely limited.

Independence Day was about to enter its second weekend, and Duke was no longer worried about the general box office trends. The film with the largest promotional investment this week wouldn't pose a threat to Independence Day at all.

With his busy work coming to a close for the time being, Duke planned to relax this weekend. He had been tightly wound for far too long.

Flipping through his phone contacts, he found a number. Duke had just dialed it when a pleasantly surprised voice rang out from the receiver.

"Is that you, Duke?"

"Hi, Sally. It's been a while. Do you have time? Let's get dinner tonight."

"Sure."

"Where are you? Should I come pick you up?"

"I'm in acting class... It's ending soon, so come on over. I'm at the Andrew Acting School in Burbank."

'Seems like that's the one Scarlett Johansson goes to?' With that thought, Duke left the studio.

Half an hour later, the black Bentley parked in the open space in front of the school entrance. Checking the time, Duke pushed the door open, stepped out, and stood to the side, looking toward the school gates while waiting for Charlize Theron to come out.

This place wasn't unfamiliar; he had been here a few times before. Scarlett Johansson took acting classes here too.

Just as he thought of this, Duke suddenly heard the sound of someone kicking the tires on the other side of the car. It sounded as if the person held a grudge against him, kicking incessantly and letting out a series of muffled thumps.

"Scar!"

Duke turned his head. Even though he could only see the blonde hair on the top of her head, he still recognized who it was. "What are you doing?"

"What are you doing here?"

The little blonde girl walked around the front of the car and stared straight at Duke. She seemed to be in a bad mood. "Are you here to pick me up?"

After saying this, she blinked, seeming to cheer up quite a bit.

"I have a date with a friend." Duke looked at Scarlett, then turned his gaze back to the school entrance. "She takes acting classes here too."

"Who? Do I know her?" She moved right in front of Duke.

"You don't know her." Duke had already spotted Charlize Theron's tall figure. "Scar, who's picking you up today?"

"Dad said he was picking me up."

The little girl pointed at her children's wristwatch. "But I've been waiting out here for half an hour and he's still not here. He's late again!"

Perhaps hearing the sound of high heels approaching from behind, Scarlett glanced back and asked weakly, "Can I go with you?"

"Sweetheart, your father will be worried if he gets here and can't find you."

Hearing Duke's tactful refusal, Scarlett curled her lip and muttered, "No, he won't! Aside from this morning, I haven't seen him in a whole week!"

"Hi, Sally."

Seeing Charlize Theron walking over, Duke waved at her. He looked at Scarlett standing in front of him and felt a headache coming on.

"Who is this..."

Arriving at the Bentley, Charlize Theron looked at the little girl with some curiosity. Just as Duke was about to introduce her, Scarlett's eyes flashed, and she grabbed Duke's sleeve directly.

"Dad, let's go home." She didn't look like she was acting at all. "Mom is still waiting for us at home."

"Dad...?"

The look in Charlize's eyes as she glanced over could only be described as shock, while Duke fumed.

"Scar, stop messing around!" Duke tilted his head to look at her.

"I'm not messing around, what I said is true." The little girl turned her head, dodging Duke's sharp gaze. "Mom really is waiting for me at home to eat."

"She... isn't actually your daughter, is she?" Charlize Theron seemed to have figured something out.

"She's my mother's goddaughter." Duke gave a rather helpless explanation. "Her name is Scarlett Johansson, you can call her Scar."

Duke couldn't possibly just leave her here alone, so he asked, "Scar, do you have your dad's phone number?"

"Here you go."

Scarlett fished out a tag from her pocket and handed it to Duke. Duke took out his phone and dialed the number on it. Once it connected, he explained the situation here, but his eyebrows furrowed at the same time. Before he even brought up Scarlett, he clearly heard the heavy panting of a man and a woman through the earpiece.

"Tell you what, Mr. Johansson. I'll take Scar home."

After hanging up, Duke's frown deepened. The other party hadn't even asked who he was and actually just agreed!