[Chapter 820: Going with the Flow]
The day after the Golden Globe nominations were announced happened to be a Friday. With Sony's Jerry Maguire and Paramount's Star Trek: First Contact making their wide debuts, it heralded the arrival of the year's most competitive Christmas season.
MGM's December release, Mission: Impossible 2, had showcased a robust performance, opening with over $82 million in its first week. After three weeks, its cumulative box office reached $165 million, with an overseas total surpassing $100 million from the 19 countries where it had already been released. The buzz surrounding it was tremendous.
After taking a significant hit with Waterworld, Kevin Costner made his strong return to the ranks of Hollywood's top-tier stars through the success of Mission: Impossible 2. Given MGM had secured two sequels during Costner's down period after Waterworld, the launch of Mission: Impossible 3 would likely go without a hitch. But with Mission: Impossible 2 outperforming other spy movie series at the box office, it was evident that a potential Mission: Impossible 4, even deeper in plot and character crossover, would inevitably lead to a protracted salary negotiation between MGM and Costner. This predicament, albeit a fortunate one, would be welcomed by any Hollywood studio hoping for similar concerns.
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New Line Cinema, under the Firefly Group, reported that Rush Hour had grossed $14.38 million in its fourth week since its Thanksgiving opening, with a cumulative total of $101.06 million, becoming New Line's second film of the year to cross the $100 million mark. Given the current box office trend, Rush Hour's total domestic box office would likely reach at least $140 million.
In contrast to Firefly's relatively lackluster box office performance this year, New Line, which specialized in lower-budget films under $30 million, appeared to be thriving.
This year, New Line produced and released a total of 16 films, and if we excluded the delay of Bad Boys 2 to the next summer, the average production cost for the remaining 15 released films only stood at $16 million. By that metric, New Line's total investment in film production this year only amounted to $240 million, a number quite similar to the production cost of Titanic.
In terms of return on investment, New Line's top four performing films this year -- Rush Hour, Se7en, Final Destination, and Rumble in the Bronx --were expected to collectively reach a domestic box office total of $350 million. Though there were some underperforming films among the other 11, with earnings only in the two to three million range, the cumulative total for ten of those films exceeded $120 million.
Typically, mid- to low-budget films displayed strong cultural characteristics that made it difficult for them to succeed overseas. However, with Se7en outperforming its domestic gross by more than two times with $220 million internationally, New Line's films collectively reached $560 million in foreign ticket sales this year.
Overall, New Line Cinema, with a production budget of $240 million in 1996, achieved a remarkable total box office of $1.03 billion worldwide, netting over $200 million in pure profits for the Firefly Group, without counting post-theatrical revenues from video and TV rights.
At the Golden Globe nominations announcement, Titanic only received one inconsequential nomination for Best Screenplay. Although there were numerous critical voices, the media sentiment shifted significantly, making voices pessimistic about Titanic's prospects resound even more.
The news regarding Rush Hour crossing the $100 million mark coincided with the day of the Golden Globe nominations. As the production and distribution company for Rush Hour, New Line's contrasting annual production budget compared to Titanic also grabbed media attention.
With a similar production budget of about $200 million, New Line's 15 mid-budget films had generated over $1 billion globally, while the all-or-nothing Titanic found its future uncertain, leading many to believe that this film might face significant losses.
This stark contrast undoubtedly threw cold water on Hollywood's recent trend toward big investments and large productions. Many reflections emerged in the media, including a lengthy report in the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter.
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"Since the early 1990s, Hollywood has seemingly grown increasingly obsessed with blockbusters. No one can deny the substantial profits generated by films like Jurassic Park, The Mummy, and Men in Black for their respective studios. However, we cannot ignore the disastrous consequences that failures of big-budget films like Cutthroat Island, Waterworld, and Cliffhanger have had on investors and studios. The catastrophic flop of Cutthroat Island led to Firefly, still quite small at the time, being swallowed up whole by Disney.
This year, Firefly Group, which had seen nothing but success with big productions, seemed to be headed for an unprecedented 'epic disaster' with Titanic's staggering $215 million investment, reminiscent of the events of 1912. Conversely, companies like New Line and Miramax focusing on mid- to low-budget productions quietly thrived and steadily expanded, gradually capturing more market share.
In particular, New Line, a subsidiary of Firefly Group, leveraged its budget nearly equal to that of Titanic to boost global box office earnings beyond $1 billion. By the first week of December, New Line's share of the $590 million in North American box office for 1996 reached 7.8%, nearly matching the shares of established studios like Sony and Paramount.
As a creative industry, Hollywood surely needed to pursue high-budget projects for innovation in filmmaking techniques and special effects, striving to offer superior content to viewers. Yet, we must also reflect; perhaps Hollywood needs to return to Barry Diller's 'tent pole theory', where a few blockbuster films serve as tent poles, supporting a larger number of mid-budget films acting as the canopy. This approach would represent the classic survival strategy for Hollywood film companies. Alternatively, if a studio attempts to survive solely on a few tent poles while disregarding the existence of canopies, it would be clear that when 'the storm arrives', the results could be dire."
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Following the publication of this article in The Hollywood Reporter, many media outlets began to echo similar sentiments.
Eric, who found himself in New York, also quickly caught wind of this article. While he had been reflecting on Firefly's trajectory in recent years, he scoffed at the perspective expressed in the piece.
The prevalence of big-budget films was almost an inevitable trend in Hollywood's development, as these films possessed an innate and significant influence. Movies like Jurassic Park not only provided healthy profits from box office, video, and TV rights but also created entire lucrative auxiliary industries involving toys, computer games, and licensing. The potential commercial returns were incomparable to those of mid- to low-budget films.
Even when mid- to low-budget films achieved box office success, the avenues for extracting commercial benefits often ended with video and TV rights. However, films like Bad Boys and Rush Hour, which had sequels in their future, would see their production budgets inevitably double after the first film succeeded, thus entering the realm of big productions.
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Regardless of external media commentary, the anxious mood at Firefly's management level, or the gloating of other Hollywood studios, the release date for Titanic drew closer each day.
In the final week before release, Titanic was hit with a media blitz of promotional teasers across Firefly's television network. Massive posters for Titanic began to rise at prominent landmarks in major cities across North America, with Cameron, Leo, and Rachel making appearances on mainstream talk shows. Though Eric did not take part in the final stages of Titanic's promotion, he spent nearly two or three hours daily in Southampton communicating with Firefly's management, distribution departments, and creative teams about all aspects.
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On December 19, rough estimates for the first week of Christmas box office data rolled in. The two new releases, Star Trek: First Contact and Jerry Maguire, managed to pull in $43 million and $24 million, respectively, in their opening weeks. Their box office trajectories indicated that they would not significantly impact the upcoming release of Titanic. A comedy set to release alongside Titanic, Mars Attacks!, also posed little threat, given that while it starred seasoned Hollywood talent Jack Nicholson, it could not compete with Titanic's production budget, pre-release acclaim, or promotional scale.
While other Hollywood studios bore some malice towards Titanic's release, they ultimately respected its substantial status, leading them not to pit heavyweight productions against Titanic directly. The greatest rival for Titanic was itself -- whether it could replicate the strong market reception it enjoyed in its original timeline and create the box office phenomenon it aimed for.
Titanic launched across 2,770 theaters. Firefly had hoped to secure more than 3,000, but due to Titanic's runtime exceeding three hours, and the industry's prevailing skepticism regarding the film, many theaters that did not have close collaborations with Firefly refused to schedule screenings at all.
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At 8 PM, after finishing a phone call with Katzenberg discussing the promotional strategy for Titanic's opening week, Eric hung up and leaned back, allowing himself not to dwell on the film any further.
He had done what he could, and now, it was time to let fate take its course.
Casually tossing his phone onto the coffee table in the living room, Eric reached for his daughter, who was wide-eyed and glued to the television beside Joanna. "Elia, too much TV isn't good for you. How about I read you a bedtime story instead?"
Hawaii squirmed slightly in Eric's arms, eyes still fixed on the TV screen. "But, Daddy, I'm not tired."
"Kevin's already asleep; you need to get some rest, too. Just listen to a bedtime story for a bit, and you'll feel sleepy," Eric replied. Emma, who had been sitting beside Drew, jumped up with her big eyes sparkling, wanting to join in on the bedtime story and stretching her arms for a hug from Eric.
Emma was about to turn five; however, she seemed to show signs of repeating her previous life's petite stature. Even though she was two years older than Hawaii, she was only a little taller than her.
Eric easily lifted Emma, one in each arm as he made his way to the kids' room, asking, "So, what do you want to listen to?"
As the television faded from view and seeing the inevitability of the situation, Hawaii reluctantly turned towards Eric and said, "Daddy, bedtime stories are so boring. Can we read the Encyclopedia instead?"
Eric chuckled, "Sweetheart, if we do that, I might just fall asleep before you."
Listening to the playful banter between father and daughter, Joanna and the others on the sofa couldn't help but laugh.
Eric had been under tremendous stress recently, which they weren't unaware of. Alongside Titanic's dim box office outlook, the substantial $1.5 billion investment by Clover Holdings, a subsidiary of Firefly, in popular tech stocks for the Nasdaq market caused quite the stir. Only a few days earlier in Manhattan, Eric had argued with board member and shareholder David West regarding this investment, while Buffett had expressed doubt and discontent over the phone.
At that moment, hearing Eric's lighthearted exchange with his daughter, Joanna and the others knew that while his mindset was undoubtedly affected by recent events, he was managing to keep his spirits up, providing them with some relief.
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The next day started early. Checking the watch on the bedside table, Eric noticed it was just past seven, still dark outside.
No longer feeling sleepy, he carefully disentangled himself from the little girl nestled against him and quietly got dressed, leaving the bedroom.
Last week's snow still hadn't completely melted, and today's sky had turned to a dull gray once more.
The maids in the manor were already preparing breakfast, and today's newspaper lay on the coffee table in the living room. Eric settled on the sofa and began flipping through the pages one by one.
The media had already seemed weary of the Titanic narrative, having gone through too many cycles of discussion. Even after last night's grand premiere, the winter chill and Titanic's lengthy three-hour runtime inevitably resulted in many opting out of the midnight screening. There weren't many film reviews about Titanic in today's paper, and overall assessments remained similar to those during the pre-release stage. A detailed analysis of media sentiment would have to wait for Firefly's marketing department report; based on what Eric could gather from a few newspaper articles, he couldn't discern any clear trends.
As eight o'clock approached, Joanna and the twin girls Natasha began stirring. Just as Eric was placing his newspaper down and heading to the gym, his phone rang.
The call came directly from Katzenberg in Los Angeles, where it was still only 5 AM. For Katzenberg, this was no problem; among the executives at Firefly, two notorious workaholics were known -- Katzenberg being one, and the other was, of course, not Eric, but Robert Iger, who took it further by rising every morning at 4:30.
Their conversation lasted over ten minutes on the phone, after which Eric temporarily set aside his morning workout and headed to the study.
The study had a wall-sized whiteboard where a large heading read 'Titanic', underneath which was a pre-organized table.
Picking up a black marker nearby, Eric calmly jotted down Titanic's midnight screening box office number: $1.56 million.
Uneventful. A lukewarm response.
*****
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