Two Hundred and Seventy Four - Take Action on the Eve of Release

After the Oscars, it was early April, and Wayne finally completed the production of "Batman Begins."

Since he had to rearrange the previous shots of the film in his own style, he was very demanding during the final fine editing. If he was even slightly dissatisfied, he would go back and start over.

Fortunately, there was plenty of time for post-production this time. With the careful polishing by Wayne, Zack Snyder and others, the film did not miss the scheduled media preview.

The day after the film was completed, Warner Bros. immediately held an internal trial screening. Both the executives present and the company's own film viewing experts were shocked by the effect of the finished film.

In the words of Bruce Rosenblum, Wayne has perfectly balanced the commercial and artistic attributes to the extreme this time! And this sentence was recognized by everyone present.

Being busy until mid-April, Wayne did not get any rest. As soon as he came out of the post-production studio, he had to spare his energy to cooperate with Warner Bros.'s promotion and marketing.

He began to consciously accept interviews with the media, and at the same time, he rhythmically and slowly released various information and posters about "Batman Begins" to gradually raise the expectations of movie fans.

"According to our reporter, all production of "Batman Begins" directed by Wayne Greenberg has been completed. At the same time, as the leading actor in the film, Christian Bale's Batman look has also been disclosed.

It can be seen from this movie poster that this time Bruce Wayne has undergone major changes in both his appearance and his equipment. Even if this Batman is wearing a dark armor, you can still feel his strength. He will definitely become the perfect on-screen lover in the hearts of many women. "

Just one day before the media preview of the film, CNN, a subsidiary of Time Warner, promoted the film emphatically.

"According to the reporter's interview with director Wayne Greenberg, this film mainly tells the origin of Batman. The film has no connection with the first two films. It is a new story that overturns the previous screen image. It tells the story of Bruce Wayne From childhood to becoming the Guardian of Gotham, all the mental journeys I encountered..."

Just after the TV station recommended it, the film's promotional activities gradually became intensive. Almost every day, new news about the film broke out on major media platforms. Sometimes it was a short trailer of more than ten seconds, and sometimes it was a short trailer of Batman. Fighting footage.

At the same time, after a period of rest, Christian Bale also began to appear frequently in front of the media with intensive promotional activities. Especially when he drove the Batmobile and appeared at the promotional scene, he almost became the focus of various media and the focus of public attention.

The focus of the promotion of "Batman Begins" at this stage is entirely on Christian Bale and Naomi Watts, a new Batman and a well-known Hollywood actress. They have completely become the publicity core.

Although Naomi Watts does not have the status of a first-line actress, her screen image has always been perfect and she is the focus of many male fans, which is also guaranteed to add more appeal to the film.

Of course, the focus of the film's promotion cannot always be on the male and female protagonists. Over time, it will reduce the public's sense of freshness about the film. Therefore, the focus of promotion is also constantly shifting, focusing on the plans formulated by Warner Bros. Work your way down.

After the media preview ended, almost all major media and film critics began to praise the director.

"Typical Wayne Greenberg's production style, dark and serious style, and more friendly to movie fans. The film has significantly fewer large-scale shots, making it suitable for more teenagers to watch."

The large and small media under Warner Bros. all began to promote the film's director. Everyone knew that the young director himself had a large number of die-hard fans.

In just a few days, under the bombardment of TV stations, newspapers, magazines, and radio stations, potential movie-watching groups across North America, and even many passers-by, became aware of one thing. The King of Darkness at the beginning of the summer season was back. Got it!

From "Happy Death Day", which first introduced the audience to him, to "Get Out", which later gained huge reputation, and then "Joker", which swept the world, and "Joker", which can create miracles even with excessive works, In the past few years, he has accumulated an uncountable number of fans.

Fans of directors are not like celebrities. They don't talk about their favorite director or put up his posters. But when his new film is released, these people are often the first to enter the theater to support the film shot by their idol.

This phenomenon had already begun to take shape when Wayne's last film "The Return of the Clown" premiered. Warner Bros. also began to have more expectations for this group of people, which is why they worked hard to hype the film's director.

And unlike Wayne's movies in the past, those teenagers who want to watch those movies can only wait for the movies to be released from theaters, then go to Blockbuster to rent or buy video tapes to watch. They have never been able to go into a theater to buy R-rated movies. ticket.

But this time "Batman Begins" is at the PG13 level. Teenagers can watch it directly without having to wait patiently for the tape. This group of potential moviegoers, not even third-party investigation companies, can Come up with specific data.

This is the difference between R-rated movies and non-R-rated movies. The number of moviegoers may double or even more. After all, the main group of moviegoers in the summer are young people between the ages of 13 and 30.

Throughout the month of April, promotional posters for "Batman Begins" were printed all over the media, TV stations, and even outdoor billboards. The intensity of film promotion can be seen almost everywhere.

Just as time has entered the beginning of May, both film critics and the media are praising the film's reputation, and movie fans are also full of expectations. 20th Century Fox and Paramount have made some moves on the eve of the film's release. .

In a villa far away in the suburbs of Chicago, Roger Ebert was notified by his agent to finish writing a long film review in his study. Farther away from Chicago, in New York, the famous film critic David Denbigh was also there. At the same time, I wrote a film review.

In addition to these two well-known film critics, countless film reviewers with newspaper columns across North America were notified on the same day and unanimously wrote various opinions on "Batman Begins".

Early the next morning, as soon as Wayne woke up, he received calls from Jimmy and Jeff Robinoff in turn. After a hurried shower, he got in the car and rushed to Burbank Warner. Brothers Building.

"Look at this, Wayne. I didn't expect that 20th Century Fox and Paramount, after enduring it for more than a month, couldn't help but take action!"

As soon as he entered the CEO's office, Wayne saw a lot of newspapers. Even at a casual glance, he could see that they were almost full of criticisms of "Batman Begins."

Picking up a copy of "Chicago Sunboard", he saw the film reviews in the entertainment section at first glance.

"Interesting!" Knowing exactly what happened, Wayne was no longer in a hurry, lit a cigarette, leaned on the sofa and calmed down to read the newspaper.

"The confusion of young Hollywood directors and the fall of Wayne Greenberg!"

When he saw this title, he felt weird. These film critics were really shameless. Have they forgotten how they praised him before?

"The success of several consecutive films has earned Wayne Greenberg countless praises. When the film achieved box office records, it also gained countless fans and professional reputation. From this "Batman Begins" It can be seen from the article that this young man has been lost.

He lost his own style of profound humanistic feelings, profound analysis of sensitive social issues, and stories that are captivating and empathetic to the audience, and began to become like a Hollywood assembly line production, constantly stuffing popcorn elements into the film!

The story of this film is logically confusing, with almost all scenes serving the purpose of fighting. The dark and serious style has become more deliberate, and special effects that he has never used well in the past are also included. In the second half of the film, apart from car chases and fights, there are explosions. The movie-watching experience is like a nerve-wracking experience.

There is no doubt that this young man has lost his way and fallen into commercial popcorn. From this film alone, we can find that he has exhausted his talents and entered a cycle of constantly denying himself..."

The entire film review is a criticism of the film and him as a director. There are many places that you can tell are fake even at a glance, but they are still written in a very confusing way. Even sober people will find that there are many places that are just for the purpose. Criticize and criticize.

"All of these?" Wayne threw the newspaper aside, reached out and picked up another one, the "Entertainment Observer" that he had never heard of.

"Yes, these are almost all negative comments about the film, and there are also a few critical film reviews." Jeff Robinov reached out and clicked on the messy newspapers and magazines on the table, and said with an ugly face: "All negative comments , all appeared suddenly overnight, and it was all premeditated."

Wayne took a long puff of cigarette and blew out a long cloud of blue mist. He tilted his head and continued to read the newspaper in his hand. He asked in a low voice: "Will it have a big impact on us?"

"It depends on the subsequent reaction." Jeff Robinov frowned. "No one can guarantee that there will be no impact now. Our film will be released in one week, but at this time, so many criticisms of "Batman Begins" have been released!

The most critical thing is the two big film critics. They did not accept our public relations funds this time. It turned out that they had already been dealt with by public relations. It also depends on how many people they can influence. The influence of these people on the summer movie should not be too great. "

"The good news is that there are only two influential film critics who are sparing no effort to criticize the film. The rest have almost all accepted Warner Bros.'s public relations and should not speak carelessly."

Jeff Robinoff looked at the newspaper in front of the table and said, except for those two film critics who are somewhat famous and may have some bad influence, he doesn't care about the rest of the film reviewers. Those people have little impact on the fans. choose.

"Jeff."

Wayne put out the cigarette butt in the ashtray and looked at the CEO of Warner Brothers while thinking. "I have a proposal, I don't know how it will work."

"You said that the company has always attached great importance to your opinions."

"Our film will be released in more than a week. Their purpose of doing this is nothing more than to confuse the public and influence their movie-watching choices."

Wayne frowned slightly and spoke his thoughts. "It's not that long before the release, and the other party obviously deliberately blocked this time to confuse potential viewers. We'd better hold two more fan screenings to maintain a good reputation among the audience, well, at the same time Contact our own media to broadcast the true reflections of these fans."

Faced with this kind of public criticism that may have an impact, he knows that the situation may not be that serious, but it must be taken seriously. He doesn't know how to fight back. I believe Warner Bros. is much more professional than him in this regard. The idea he can give is to stabilize the reputation of movie fans and exaggerate it through the media to influence more people.

Of course, it's also possible that they overestimated film critics and those movie commentators. After all, fans of "Batman Begins" are now highly anticipated, and young people are not very influenced by authority.

However, necessary measures must be taken. This is a film with an investment of over 100 million. Even if it can be a little safer, more efforts must be made.

Nodding, Jeff Robinov said: "I will discuss it with the distribution department. There are many voices criticizing you now, and there will definitely be reporters chasing you for interviews. Try not to respond to this matter, Wayne, in the end The result still depends on the box office, and everything else is left to the public relations department."

"OK, I see."

The media hype from these two companies, Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount, has indeed made the upcoming "Batman Begins" somewhat confusing. Coupled with the two completely different voices in the media, it has also made many people confused. Movie fans were hesitant.

But then Warner Bros. moved very quickly. It held three fan preview screenings in the two big cities of Los Angeles and New York. Almost all of them were invited to die-hard Wayne fans. After the screening, these fans The praise was broadcast through the media.

On the other hand, almost all the media under its own banner have also begun to continuously smear "Die Hard 3", almost returning the same tactics used by the other party.

Amid this chaos, time has gradually advanced to mid-May. Different from the past, when "Batman Begins" premieres, it will also open 2,500 advance screenings on Thursday night.

Subsequently, the opening weekend will be 33. In this regard, "Die Hard 3" is at a disadvantage, with an opening scale of only 2. However, on the same day, this film will also open 2,000 advance screenings simultaneously, which is equivalent to two films. A fierce fight between flesh and blood began.

After Hollywood entered the 1990s, with the rapid and vigorous development of North American movies, the summer schedule has become more and more important. This schedule, in which all production companies are fiercely competing, has also become the most anticipated carnival for movie fans.

And this schedule is so cruel that almost every weekend, two or more major productions will be released. Movie fans may give up on some of the films due to different movie-watching tastes, but the significance of publicity and promotion work is here, in order to attract more movie fans into the theater.

To a certain extent, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., two companies that discredit each other and promote their own films, are trying to stimulate the curiosity and interest of movie fans, so that they can go into theaters and choose their own films to contribute. box office.

1 At 8 o'clock sharp on Thursday night, the Chinese Theater in Hollywood and the Temple Theater in Los Angeles started the premieres of two movies almost simultaneously. Amid the flashes of reporters and the shouts of fans, the crew and creators walked on the red carpet.

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