The media and public attention drawn by the miraculous stock price of Daenerys Entertainment Group on its first day of IPO overshadowed other significant events that should have been major talking points.
For instance, a new film by Daenerys Entertainment released on July 1st.
Due to the Independence Day holiday on July 4th, the box office week starting on July 1st counted the weekend as a four-day period, making it one of the most critical weeks in the North American summer box office season.
On the day Daenerys Entertainment went public, three new films premiered in North American theaters: apart from "Forrest Gump," there were also Columbia Pictures' "Wolf" starring Jack Nicholson and Paramount Pictures' "The Shadow" starring Alec Baldwin.
In history, Jack Nicholson had become the most bankable star among Hollywood's old guard in the 1990s, thanks to his roles in Tim Burton's "Batman" as the Joker and the subsequent success of "A Few Good Men."
This time, however, due to Simon's butterfly effect, Nicholson missed the opportunity to reprise his role in the new "Batman" series after his success in "The Witches of Eastwick" in 1987, and his last hit, "A Few Good Men," was re-cast by Simon with different leads. Nicholson hadn't had a box office success in seven years, and his most recent film, the mob drama "Hoffa" released in 1992, grossed only $27.24 million domestically, failing to recoup its $35 million production cost.
As a result, "Wolf," a film Nicholson and his friend and writer Wesley Strick had been developing for 12 years, had its budget reduced from the originally planned $70 million to $50 million, largely due to a significant cut in Nicholson's salary, who earned only $5 million for the film, just maintaining his market value.
During this period, Robert De Niro, who was supposed to be in a career lull, had become the hottest among the old guard thanks to the consecutive box office successes of films like "The Sixth Sense" and "Dead Poets Society," effectively taking the spotlight that would have belonged to Nicholson.
Regardless, the $50 million budgeted "Wolf" was still a significant release in this period, with 2,617 screens on its opening day, making it a crucial opportunity for Nicholson to make a comeback.
The other film, "The Shadow," was based on a comic book published in the 1920s.
As DC and Marvel superheroes became hard to find in Hollywood, other major studios, seeing the success of the DC Cinematic Universe, were eager to enter the comic book adaptation market.
Thus, "The Shadow" was born.
Due to Paramount's significant investment, this comic book adaptation had a budget approaching a blockbuster-level $40 million, with an additional $30 million for marketing, and it opened on 2,738 screens.
With three blockbusters released over the Independence Day holiday, the competition was intense.
Compared to the obviously commercial "Wolf" and "The Shadow," "Forrest Gump" was promoted as a potentially artsy drama similar to "Rain Man."
Although "Rain Man" was very successful, recent films following its trend hadn't made much impact.
Moreover, the reviews following the premiere of "Forrest Gump" were noticeably less enthusiastic than other summer releases from Daenerys Entertainment, leading many entertainment media outlets to predict that "Forrest Gump" might become the company's first box office bomb of the summer.
A $70 million production failing at the box office would have had obvious negative repercussions for Daenerys Entertainment, especially just after its IPO.
However, when the first-day box office numbers for "Forrest Gump" were released, despite most attention still being on the aftermath of Daenerys Entertainment's IPO, many noticed the unusual box office figures for the film.
On July 1st, "Forrest Gump" grossed $7.69 million on its opening day.
Daenerys Entertainment voluntarily disclosed these figures through the Egret portal on July 2nd, including the first-day box office numbers for "Wolf" and "The Shadow," which were $5.97 million and $3.16 million, respectively.
Among the three similarly budgeted blockbusters, the box office disparity was apparent.
First, Paramount's "The Shadow" had already fallen behind on its opening day.
Jack Nicholson's "Wolf" grossed $5.97 million on its first day, with a four-day Independence Day holiday box office expected to reach around $25 million and a first-week total of about $30 million, positioning it as a potential billion-dollar club member if it could maintain steady legs.
As for "Forrest Gump," the first-day gross of $7.69 million far exceeded many expectations.
After the June 29th premiere, with lukewarm reviews compared to other Daenerys Entertainment summer releases and the film's artsy drama nature, many media outlets predicted that if this story about a simpleton running amok in modern American history could gross $20 million in its first week, it would be considered a success.
Now, with a first-day gross of $7.69 million, the seven-day first week was expected to reach around $35 million.
A first-week gross of $35 million was on par with "Stargate" and "Speed," making the likelihood of "Forrest Gump" surpassing $100 million in North American box office even greater than "Wolf."
Although even a $100 million North American gross would require Daenerys Entertainment to rely on overseas markets and other revenue channels to recoup the $70 million production cost, the project was at least likely to be profitable. More importantly, with Daenerys Entertainment's IPO just launched, "Forrest Gump" not bombing at the box office was effectively a success.
As many breathed a sigh of relief for Daenerys Entertainment, "Forrest Gump" continued to astonish with its box office performance.
After grossing $7.69 million on its first day, the film saw its Saturday box office jump to $10.37 million.
This wasn't surprising.
It's common for Saturday box office numbers to be higher than Friday's.
However, what followed was surprising: on Sunday, when the box office numbers usually hold steady or decline slightly from Saturday, "Forrest Gump" saw another increase, reaching $11.76 million.
On Monday, the Independence Day holiday, the film, which had initially been dismissed and even thought to be a drag on Daenerys Entertainment's stock price, set a new record with $12.83 million.
On July 5th, as the public returned to work after the holiday, the box office figures for the Independence Day weekend were revealed, stunning many.
In four days, "Forrest Gump," a film with mixed reviews from critics and dismissed by many as a potential box office dud, had grossed a staggering $42.65 million.
This surprising success squeezed "Wolf" down to a four-day total of only $21.45 million, $4 million less than the expected $25 million. Paramount's "The Shadow," heavily promoted by the studio, grossed only $11.15 million in its first four days.
"Forrest Gump," with its phenomenal box office performance, also displaced "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" from the top spot it had held for four consecutive weeks, with its first-weekend gross expected to exceed $50 million, second only to the mega-blockbuster "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" in the summer box office season.
On July 5th, after the weekend numbers for "Forrest Gump" were released, the Los Angeles Times published an article praising Daenerys Entertainment's "magical power to create miracles without anyone noticing."
According to Daenerys Entertainment's first-quarter financial data released during its IPO, on July 1st, the company's stock price reached $47.75, with a total market capitalization of $112.8 billion and a P/E ratio of 43.
In the current U.S. stock market, P/E ratios above 40 are quite common.
However, these are typically for high-growth small to medium-sized enterprises. For a large-scale giant like Daenerys Entertainment, with limited growth potential, P/E ratios tend to be lower, with few exceeding 30.
General Electric, which was pushed to second place among U.S. listed companies by Daenerys Entertainment, recently had a P/E ratio of only 19.
Normally, after a highly enthusiastic IPO launch, a market correction is expected.
Everyone anticipated that with the cooling of market sentiment, Daenerys Entertainment's stock price would start to decline in the new week. However, thanks to the unexpected success of "Forrest Gump," on July 5th, the company's stock price rebounded after a brief dip due to large-scale selling, as market demand increased, pushing the stock price up.
To fully capitalize on the phenomenon-level box office momentum, Simon instructed Amy Pascal to swiftly deploy an additional $10 million in marketing budget on Friday, further spreading the buzz around "Forrest Gump" among media and the public, significantly boosting market confidence in Daenerys Entertainment.
As a result, despite some institutions beginning to slowly sell off shares to realize their gains on Monday, the strong market demand for Daenerys Entertainment's stock led to a 1.3% increase, closing at $48.375, with a market capitalization of $114.3 billion.
Over the next three trading days, buoyed by the growing trend of "Forrest Gump," Daenerys Entertainment's stock continued to rise.
On July 8th, the stock closed at a high of $50.25, with a P/E ratio of 45, and a total market capitalization of $118.7 billion.
From July 1st
to July 7th, the three new releases from last Friday saw the least favored "Forrest Gump" ending its first week with a gross of $53.45 million, the second-highest opening of the summer, only behind "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises."
Despite the mixed early reviews from the media, "Forrest Gump" resonated deeply with audiences, who found it compelling in many ways.
The word-of-mouth effect among the general public had already formed, and with Daenerys Entertainment's subsequent promotional efforts, many critics began to change their views, aligning with the public and reinterpreting the film.
The phenomenon-level viewing craze officially began.
"Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" remained in second place, barely ahead of "Wolf" with a 22% drop in its fifth week, earning $25.14 million, bringing its total to $297.67 million, just shy of the $300 million mark.
Jack Nicholson's "Wolf" finished third, with a first-week gross of $24.91 million, $5 million less than the initial $30 million first-week forecast, marking another setback in Nicholson's comeback efforts.
"The Conjuring," the opening film of the Conjuring Universe, ranked fourth, with a 27% drop and a gross of $17.62 million, bringing its total to $84.16 million, allowing Daenerys Entertainment to fully recover the film's $40 million production and marketing costs.
The fifth spot went to Paramount's highly anticipated new film "The Shadow," which grossed $14.67 million in its first week. However, considering the film's $40 million budget and a likely $30 million total domestic gross, it was clearly a box office failure.
Outside the top five, "Beverly Hills Cop III," which grossed $21.96 million in its opening week, suffered a significant 51% drop in its second week, grossing only $10.72 million, bringing its total to $32.72 million, making it unlikely to exceed $50 million domestically.
The consecutive failures of two major new releases dealt a severe blow to Seagram's ambitions to establish a foothold in Hollywood.
Seagram's head Edgar Bronfman Jr., who had taken over the family business and had been eager to transform it into an entertainment empire, likely realized that Hollywood wasn't as easy to conquer as he thought.
Historically, after acquiring Universal from Panasonic, Seagram struggled for a few years before selling it to France's Vivendi Group, which later sold it to General Electric, merging it into NBC Universal, and finally ending up under Comcast. Universal has had the most ownership changes among major Hollywood studios since the 1990s.
While a single summer box office failure wouldn't necessarily deter them, Simon believed that Seagram's Hollywood ambitions were ultimately doomed to failure.
Speaking of Hollywood studio ownership changes, the success of Daenerys Entertainment's IPO seemed to have reignited interest in acquiring major Hollywood studios.
The interested party this time was none other than France's Vivendi Group, targeting Disney, of all companies.
Historically, Disney was the only major Hollywood studio that hadn't changed ownership since the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the 1980s.
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