As the new work week began, the box office for The False and Van Helsing inevitably started to decline, which was to be expected.
Just as the outside world was enthusiastically discussing the gap between David Ellison and Gilbert, David Ellison's interview, and the matter of Gilbert giving away a book, the weekday box office numbers were released one after another.
After exhausting too much of the fans' enthusiasm during its opening weekend, The False grossed $10.975 million on Monday—a respectable weekday result.
Van Helsing dropped much more sharply, with Sunday's gross at $4.32 million. Its word of mouth wasn't strong enough to sustain a healthy box office curve.
On Tuesday, with the traditional half-price movie ticket discount, the box office saw a modest uptick.
The False and Van Helsing reported $12.038 million and $5.024 million respectively.
Over the following Wednesday and Thursday, The False brought in $7.275 million and $8.213 million, for a four-day weekday total of $38.501 million.
Thus, in its first seven days of release in North America, The Unparalleled easily reached $120.026 million—an outstanding achievement.
Meanwhile, Van Helsing managed only $2.256 million and $3.019 million on Wednesday and Thursday, totaling $14.619 million over the four weekdays, far inferior to The False.
Although media outlets like The Washington Post kept criticizing Gilbert, claiming that ever since The Return of the King he had been declining year by year—
Fair-minded media and audiences disagreed. A phenomenon-level film like The Return of the King only comes along once every five to eight years.
Moreover, The Return of the King, though a classic in film history, benefited greatly from its original source material and the momentum of its prequels, building up enormous word of mouth and a massive fanbase.
The False was completely different. With an original script, it was supported entirely by the reputation of a top director and several major stars.
If you switched directors and lead actors, The False would never have raked in $120 million in just seven days.
And besides, Gilbert's mind simply didn't work like a normal person's. If you replaced him with another writer and director, who could have come up with such a striking story?
Another pleasant surprise was the overseas market. Just like in North America, The False's overseas weekday grosses inevitably dropped sharply.
Even so, the film still brought in $75.358 million overseas over four weekdays, raising its overseas total to $215.215 million and its global gross to $335.241 million.
Because overseas box office reporting is complicated, though a precise number is given, the actual figure is likely higher due to missing statistics in some markets.
A crime film like this was never destined to explode worldwide the way Titanic, Jurassic Park, or The Return of the King did.
But the global box office The False harvested in just seven days was still more than enough to satisfy both Disney and Warner.
The only slight regret was that its merchandise sales could not match those of Gilbert's films from previous years.
This was normal—The False's merchandise mainly consisted of co-branded products like clothing, sunglasses, and jewelry.
There were also character figurines. Tom Cruise's and Charlize Theron's figures sold extremely well, probably because both were handsome and beautiful stars.
However, since their likenesses were used, a share of the sales had to go to them.
That was nothing unusual—it had always been the norm in Hollywood.
Later, Gilbert still planned to increase revenue from merchandise and long-term sales. For example, when the DVD was released, he could include the alternate endings he had filmed, adding more selling points.
In short, making a profit through the box office was no issue for The False. Merchandise sales were pure income. More importantly, the stock market performance of Disney and Warner would grow even stronger.
That was the role of a box office hit—it could boost a studio's standing in the stock market.
MGM-United Artists, for example, had suffered because Windtalkers and the new 007 series underperformed, hurting its market performance and breaking its capital chain.
Now, despite opposition from many Hollywood traditionalists, under Michael Ovitz's mediation, Prince Abdul of the UAE, representing the Kingdom Investment Group, officially acquired MGM-United Artists.
Hollywood did not shrink from the "Big Seven" down to the "Big Six." With abundant capital from the Kingdom Investment Group, MGM-United Artists no longer needed to sell off its assets cheaply.
This was one of the huge butterfly effects triggered by Gilbert. It was he who had inspired Prince Abdul's determination to enter Hollywood and who had introduced him to Michael Ovitz.
It was easy to imagine that future cooperation between Michael Ovitz, Sky Studios, and Columbia Pictures would be very smooth.
Although this year's Van Helsing was not a success, at least it would not lose too much money. Through long-term revenue, it could break even and turn a profit.
Therefore, Columbia Pictures had not lost faith in Michael Ovitz and David Ellison, and had already signed a three-film distribution deal with Sky Studios.
Meanwhile, over at MGM-United Artists, the first project after Prince Abdul's takeover was handed over to Michael Ovitz to manage.
After acquiring MGM-United Artists, Prince Abdul hosted a celebratory party, at the same time declaring to Hollywood: he had arrived.
He widely invited film company executives, naturally including Gilbert, since it had been Gilbert who had encouraged him to buy MGM-United Artists in the first place.
Of course, Gilbert attended. The North American publicity tour was not long, so Gilbert did not follow to other regions, and instead attended the party together with Cameron Diaz, who was recovering postpartum.
Tom Cruise took Vera Farmiga and others to Central and South America for promotion, Charlize Theron went to Asia, and Tom Hanks went to Europe.
By this weekend, The False would expand into over seventy markets, including mainland China.
Thus, it was foreseeable that although The False's box office would not explode as in its opening weekend, it would maintain a strong curve.
Looking at Van Helsing's global box office, during the four weekdays it earned less than The False, but still collected $25.665 million.
This brought Van Helsing's overseas box office to $93.012 million. At first glance, this seemed good, but compared with The False it was underwhelming.
In fact, once the opening weekend contest ended, David Ellison realized how naïve his thinking had been.
Without a high-quality work, it was impossible to achieve the goal—even if not surpassing, at least getting close to Gilbert's films.
Because Gilbert never failed. He was too consistent, like a machine.
Adding in this week's North American weekday earnings and the opening weekend, Van Helsing's global box office reached $151.057 million.
According to media forecasts, Van Helsing's final global box office would fall around $300 million. Meanwhile, The False's would be even higher, at around $700 million.
Do not think $700 million is small. Up until now, Tom Cruise had never had a film surpass $700 million.
Back when Far and Away broke $100 million worldwide, Tom Cruise even threw a celebration banquet. But that was the 1990s, under very different circumstances.
Although Tom Cruise had worked with Gilbert on Chicago, that was after all a musical. A global box office of over $300 million was already very good.
Even so, some still praised Tom Cruise's box office draw—being able to bring a musical to more than $300 million worldwide was no simple feat.
Now Tom Cruise could proudly say: "I too have a film I starred in that grossed over $700 million, hahaha…"
It might sound a bit adolescent, but it was truly Tom Cruise's real thought, as Nicole Kidman joked about when she chatted with Naomi Watts while visiting.
Next, Tom Cruise and Gilbert had another collaboration, the long-settled The Last of Us, which would begin after the first installment of Batman.
Tom Cruise eagerly anticipated this cooperation. With several projects in hand, he had no choice but to turn down Spielberg's invitation.
But Spielberg's projects never lacked stars. He simply turned to Tom Hanks again, and their film was War of the Worlds.
Coincidentally, Tom Hanks also played a father in that film.
It seemed that after The False, the two Toms would again face a fiery box office battle.
And within the same family-theme framework, Gilbert and Spielberg—teacher and student—would also face a contest. By now, no one thought Gilbert was lesser than his teacher Spielberg.
War of the Worlds was adapted from H.G. Wells' 1898 novel of the same name, which told the terrifying story of aliens invading Earth.
This tale of Earth under attack, with tiny humans crushed like ants, became a classic of literature.
The novel was praised not only for its boundless imagination but also for its astonishingly accurate predictions of modern weapons.
In 1938, a radio drama adaptation of the novel caused panic in America, and in 1953 the story was first adapted into a film.
But due to the limitations of technology at the time, the film's presentation was lacking. Thus, Spielberg long had the idea of remaking it.
It could be said this was an adaptation with a ready audience base.
As for The Last of Us, judging from sketches Gilbert had shared on social media, it was presented as an original story.
Another original story—but audiences were already used to it. After all, Gilbert's screenwriting ability was famously strong.
What audiences did not know, however, was that this film was in fact also an adaptation—only adapted from a video game story into a film. And the game itself had not even been released yet.
This was a bold attempt by Gilbert. Having already succeeded in adapting a Hong Kong film into Hollywood's The False, a video game adaptation should not be a problem.
Previously, the Tomb Raider movie had already given Gilbert an example. Although it was not a huge hit, it still made a profit and even had a sequel.
That film had even wanted Gilbert as director. Angelina Jolie promised that as long as Gilbert directed, she would let him handle everything as he wished.
But Gilbert had no interest in getting caught up in her disputes with Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
Moreover, with Angelina Jolie's notoriously chaotic private life, who knew who she might have been with and what they carried? Gilbert did not want to catch anything.
If possible, Gilbert hoped his movie dynasty could last for generations. He had no wish to die early.
....
Hi For access to additional chapters of
Director in Hollywood (40 chpaters)
Made In Hollywood (60 Chapters)
Pokemon:Bounty Hunter(30 Chapters)
Douluo Dalu: Reincarnated as Yan(40 Chapters)
Hollywood:From Razzie to Legend(40 Chapters)
The Great Ruler (30 Chapters)
Join pateron.com/Translaterappu