Chapter 583: Unexpected Presales

The online leak was a promotional angle Duke and Warner Brothers pushed hard to hype up, but the film's conventional marketing push was equally massive.

How do you guarantee a film becomes a box office hit? It was a question the entire global film industry constantly studied.

The content, cast, and director were certainly important, but essential exposure and promotion before release were just as vital. Especially in today's nearly white-hot competition, if a film wanted to avoid being drowned out among hundreds of others, marketing could be the deciding factor.

In Hollywood, for a blockbuster like Iron Man with a total budget approaching 250 million dollars, promotional and distribution costs usually accounted for about fifty percent of the total expenses.

Following the usual film marketing playbook, this 100-million-dollar distribution budget included a certain percentage of advertising resource exchanges. Production and distribution companies could trade character images and film copyrights for these resources. The studio wasn't necessarily spending a full 100 million dollars in cold hard cash, but devoting thirty to fifty percent of a commercial film's total investment to promotion had long since become standard market practice in Hollywood.

Examples of mediocre films succeeding on the back of marketing were not uncommon in Hollywood. Furthermore, Hollywood's promotional strategies had shown two major trends in recent years.

First, marketing and distribution would directly influence, if not outright decide, a film's box office success or failure. Second, hard online media promotions were increasingly being utilized in marketing campaigns. When choosing media channels, a multi-platform promotional philosophy combining "new media social marketing + traditional media hard advertising" had gradually taken shape.

The combined use of multimedia had become a mandatory choice for every commercial film. Against this backdrop, distributors who possessed robust media resources and could form tightly controlled media service platforms naturally rose to the top of the industry chain.

Take, for example, the incredibly unfair distribution contract previously signed between Pixar Studio and Walt Disney, or the current partnership between Marvel Pictures and Warner Brothers.

Did these companies really not want to distribute the films they produced themselves, instead of handing over massive distribution fees?

The answer, of course, was no. Marketing and distribution might look simple, but actually doing it required a long-term process. The manpower and material resources demanded along the way reached terrifying figures.

When the traditional Big Six Companies of Hollywood besieged DreamWorks, it wasn't on the production side. They couldn't restrict DreamWorks's production too much anyway; what they besieged were simply its distribution channels.

Nowadays, the freedom and immediacy of online media gave marketing teams tremendous convenience.

In the leaked version, there was a scene where Robert Downey Jr. wore a Motion Capture suit and performed attack motions in front of a green screen. Duke released a thirty-second completed visual effects version of this scene. To those who had seen the online leak, this was entirely new and vastly different content: Tony Stark transformed into Iron Man, blasted a tank with a single shot, and swaggered away without looking back at the explosion.

The moment Duke released the video clip on Instant Sharing, Warner Brothers immediately followed up with their own hype. A considerable number of review articles appeared online with a similar theme—Iron Man was absolutely not a paper tiger; not even the army, navy, or air force were his match.

Let alone film-related content, even things that seemingly had little to do with the movie could be used for hype.

For instance, female lead Rachel McAdams falling ill and being hospitalized due to her recent strenuous work schedule was dragged into the spotlight by Warner's promotional staff.

"It is understood that Rachel McAdams's health was quite poor upon admission. Since she was unable to walk at the time, her boyfriend had to push her into the emergency room in a wheelchair. According to hospital sources, the actress had invested so much time and energy into Iron Man that her body had been in a long-term state of sub-health, ultimately leading to..."

In the period leading up to the release of Iron Man, aside from follow-up reports on the early leak, the media was saturated with all sorts of news about the film. It would be hard not to notice it.

As Duke saw it, all conditions were developing in a favorable direction.

It was under these circumstances that advance ticket booking for the first week of Iron Man officially opened.

Returning home from work on Friday, Drake turned on his computer immediately. He remembered clearly that Iron Man ticket pre-orders started today. Ever since watching the online leak, his desire to see the completed version had become exceptionally urgent. The endless stream of news about the incident recently only served as a constant reminder.

The moment his computer booted up, Drake went to the IMDB website and clicked directly into the ticket booking section.

Sure enough, the name Iron Man was displayed in the most conspicuous position. Without a second thought, Drake opened the relevant booking link.

"What?"

Just a glance made his jaw drop. Unlike Batman Begins, this film would have many advance screenings on Thursday, and he naturally wanted to see it as early as possible.

Drake lived near San Francisco Bay. This was one of the most prosperous areas in the greater San Francisco region and was dotted with many movie theaters. To his surprise, however, the Iron Man advance screenings at the theaters closest to his home were completely sold out on IMDB...

How could this be possible? Presales had only been open for a single day!

'There must be something wrong with IMDB's system.'

With this thought in mind, Drake closed IMDB and opened Box ., where he could also pre-order movie tickets.

However, after clicking the relevant link, Drake was disappointed once again, proving that there was absolutely nothing wrong with IMDB's system. Tickets for the Iron Man advance screenings at the theaters near his home had already been completely booked up!

'Why is this?'

Drake felt very strange. The film had clearly leaked early, so why were all those people frantically grabbing tickets just like him?

He hadn't really thought about that yet.

Tickets for theaters in prosperous areas were hard to book, but tickets in less prime locations certainly wouldn't be as tight. Drake knew this very well. Although those theaters were a bit far from his home, he wanted to see Iron Man early way too much. Ultimately, he had to book an advance screening ticket at a suburban theater.

No matter what, as Drake saw it, being able to book a ticket for the advance screening and see the completed version of Iron Man as early as possible made it all worth it.

Not too far from the house Drake rented, in a theater belonging to the Regal Entertainment Group, Eliza Wood had just taken over the evening shift. Her main responsibility was answering the phone and handling ticket booking services.

"Hello, this is the San Francisco Bay Regal Cinema..."

While answering the call, Eliza Wood checked the internal system's ticket status on her computer. "I'm very sorry, but the advance screening for Iron Man next Thursday is sold out," she said. "I suggest you choose Friday or Saturday. Friday night? Four tickets? Okay, no problem. Thank you for calling, goodbye."

She had barely put down the receiver when the phone rang again. Just like the last time, the caller was booking tickets for Iron Man.

In less than five minutes, Eliza Wood took a full ten calls, eight of which were about Iron Man.

Eliza Wood couldn't help but feel curious. Having worked at the theater for several years, she had seen movies leak early before. After those films were released, their attendance rates were far from ideal, even if they weren't completely ignored. Yet not only had Iron Man been unaffected, its pre-orders were actually incredibly hot.

What exactly was going on?

Even when it was time to clock out, Eliza Wood still hadn't figured it out.

The booking data from Regal Entertainment Group's affiliated theater chains would be transmitted immediately to the regional branch offices. After the branches compiled the data, they would send it to the group's headquarters. The headquarters would then forecast and adjust the film's screenings based on the various presale situations.

First thing Saturday morning, the relevant statistical data for Friday's presales was delivered to Regal Entertainment Group's headquarters.

"Never underestimate Duke Rosenberg and his films."

Looking at the statistical reports in front of him, Lynch, the head of the company's theater department, said to CEO Robert, "We should adjust our strategy."

"We definitely need to adjust our strategy regarding Iron Man," Robert agreed with a gentle nod.

It was impossible for the leak not to affect theater companies. Regal Entertainment had also been worried that Iron Man's box office would take a major hit. Secretly, they had even planned to directly lower the film's screen share over the three-day weekend if the advance screenings had poor attendance.

However, facts proved their worries were somewhat superfluous.

"Looking at yesterday's presale statistics, Iron Man's advance screenings weren't dragged down after the leak incident at all. In fact, they exceeded our best prior expectations."

Putting down the statistical report, Lynch added, "Across Regal Entertainment's theaters, the average ticket sales rate for Iron Man's advance screenings surpassed sixty percent as of midnight last night. In some theaters in popular areas, tickets have already been completely sold out."

Robert laughed. "This is only the first day of presales. This number will continue to grow."

"What a brilliant strategy from Duke Rosenberg and Warner Brothers."

At this point, a sudden thought struck Lynch. Lowering his voice slightly, he asked, "Could this be a marketing strategy they planned on purpose?"

Hearing this, Robert considered it seriously for a moment and said, "It's not impossible. Judging from the presales, this is an absolutely classic film marketing case study."

Of course, not everyone could obtain the relevant presale data in time, leaving them with no way to form a clear judgment based on it.

In the Waldorf Grand Hotel in Manhattan, New York, an upper-class party was underway. Aerin Lauder stood in a corner of the banquet hall, chatting with several friends about topics of mutual interest. Suddenly, a somewhat familiar voice rang out nearby. The voice was a bit loud and somewhat arrogant. She couldn't help but turn her head to take a look.