Early the next morning, as soon as he got out of bed, Billy Emerson turned on his computer and logged onto the IMDb website. After watching that terrible movie the night before a film that had drained so much of his enthusiasm he was full of frustration and naturally needed an outlet to vent. As one of the most influential websites on the internet today, IMDb was the best place to do just that.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, and a line of text appeared in the comment section for Flyboys.
"Just finished watching Flyboys. Really disappointed lackluster plot, completely idiotic storyline, formulaic and utterly unsurprising performances. The worst part? How did theaters even allow such garbage to be screened as a war film?"
After posting his review, Billy Emerson gave Flyboys a score of 4.
He then went to the bathroom for a shower and changed into a fresh set of clothes. When he returned to his computer and refreshed the page, the line of text he had typed was already buried under a sea of comments, most of which were negative.
"This movie is utterly ridiculous and not worth watching. Apart from James Franco and the French beauty, there's basically nothing worth seeing."
"A very standard film completely lacking in surprises."
"Very average, very average really just average!"
"Not much else to say the movie just isn't good."
"For a film that's full of melodrama most of the time, the fact that my favorite character didn't die might be the movie's greatest reward to viewers who managed to sit through it. I only made it through Flyboys because of James Franco he's just too handsome."
"Aviator caps, French countryside, golden birch leaves, stallions, blue skies, biplanes (seriously?), girls and war the director tried to cram all these classy elements into one movie, but ended up falling flat on every front. The barroom scene where the veteran and the recruit have their first face-off is the ultimate display of the director's immaturity and incompetence. Using drunken revelry, decadence, and lion-taming to convey an attitude toward death is just too hippie and cliché."
After briefly scanning the comments, Billy Emerson's eyes shifted to the ratings. Following the midnight release, more viewers had seen Flyboys, as evidenced by the number of users who had rated the film.
On IMDb, 25,638 users had submitted ratings. And Flyboys had a score of 6.1!
"How is this possible?"
David Ellison's eyes almost bulged out when he saw the compiled data, as if he couldn't believe Flyboys had received that kind of viewer rating. He turned to look at Michael Ovitz, sitting next to him. "Such a low score…"
Michael Ovitz was sitting on the terrace, calmly regulating his breathing. In fact, he had noticed something was off right after the premiere ended last night. Unlike the mixed reactions from the test screenings, the premiere's audience larger in number had mostly shown lukewarm responses.
"David, calm down!"
The other man was still young no way he could compare to a seasoned veteran like Ovitz when it came to composure. "IMDb doesn't mean everything. There have been films in the past with low IMDb scores that still made huge profits."
IMDb is merely a trend indicator, much like the Golden Globes or the Oscars. There's no guaranteed correlation between it and a movie's box office performance.
Besides, many insiders know that IMDb ratings are often manipulated.
Take, for instance, the top three movies currently on IMDb's all-time rating chart: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Matrix, and The Godfather. The first two are both directed by Duke Rosenberg. Everyone in the upper echelons of Hollywood knows that this director controls one of the largest and most responsive online influence teams in Hollywood perhaps even in all of America.
Michael Ovitz was certain that with Duke Rosenberg's personality, there was no way he would sit idly by and let Flyboys be released without interference. He would definitely stir things up online. Although he and Disney's own PR team were monitoring IMDb, they still lagged behind in terms of online warfare.
This rating would have some impact, but it wouldn't be fatal for the film. As long as market research showed positive audience feedback, Flyboys still had a chance to recover.
"Mr. Ovitz."
His assistant suddenly walked onto the terrace and handed a briefing to Michael Ovitz. "This is the statistical report just faxed over from Disney Studios."
"Oh?"
Before Ovitz could reach for it, David Ellison snatched the report first. After a quick scan, his eyes sharpened like two blades, filled with rage, confusion, and disbelief.
"What is it?" Michael Ovitz instantly sensed that something was wrong.
"The midnight box office was only $2.02 million."
David Ellison closed his eyes for a moment, then slowly opened them again. The arrogant expression on his face was gradually disintegrating. "It didn't reach our projected $5 million."
"It only missed by about $2 million," Michael Ovitz said, slightly relieved. "That doesn't count as a failure."
David Ellison glanced at him and snorted softly, saying, "I know. For a midnight screening, this box office isn't terrible."
After all, he was a student of USC's School of Cinematic Arts and had studied Hollywood in depth over the years. If the film followed the momentum of its midnight release, then with international box office revenue and merchandise sales, it was still possible to recover the costs and even turn a profit.
But the problem was…
"The audience feedback is very unfavorable," David Ellison continued, "According to CinemaScore's survey, Flyboys only received a 65% favorable rating from theatrical audiences, with an average score of 'B-.'"
Such numbers signified that the film would severely lack staying power and would inevitably experience a sharp box office drop after the first week.
David Ellison's right hand clenched tightly into a fist, and he slammed the statistical report heavily onto the table in front of him. Young and hot-blooded as he was, it took great effort to restrain himself from losing his temper, because the education he had received since childhood told him losing his temper wouldn't solve anything.
Would throwing a tantrum make Duke Rosenberg back down? Would it stop him from attacking the film across traditional and online media?
Just as he and Disney kept clinging to Anne Hathaway's scandal, the other side would never let him off easily either.
As the heir of a business dynasty, David Ellison knew very well that this was no longer about personal grudges differing interests had already determined their opposing stances!
Compared to David Ellison, Michael Ovitz found himself unusually calm. Deep in his heart and subconscious, he seemed to believe that this was the expected outcome, as if losing to Duke Rosenberg was the most natural thing in the world.
Why was that?
Michael Ovitz only had to turn his mind slightly to figure out the crux of it he had lost too many times in past confrontations with Duke Rosenberg. So many times that it had already become a habit.
But Ovitz would not give up. A man capable of creating a super entertainment agency like CAA would never admit defeat so easily.
Just like Michael Ovitz, Duke would never give up not on any opportunity to strike his competitors.
Starting Thursday night, Panny Kallis's network troll army was fully mobilized, causing a stir across most movie-related websites, including IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Yahoo Entertainment, steering the direction of online discourse.
If Flyboys had been a film of sufficient quality, this might have caused some impact but wouldn't have dealt a serious blow to its box office and market reception.
But how many people who had seen Flyboys thought it was a good movie?
Perhaps the more forgiving viewers might say the film had a few watchable moments, but most audiences had already classified it as a bad movie.
Even if the other side had also deployed an online troll force, steering netizens who already felt Flyboys was mediocre into criticizing it online wasn't all that difficult.
And once the wave of negative reviews took shape, not even Ovitz and Disney's troll army could change the direction of public opinion on the internet.
At the same time, in traditional print media, Duke wasn't about to let Flyboys off the hook either. The more he could shrink the film's market space, the more it would benefit Batman:Begins, which was entering its second weekend of screenings.
Not to mention the media controlled or heavily influenced by Warner and Disney—just among relatively neutral outlets, facing such a bad film, Duke and Warner Bros.' PR team didn't even have to exert much effort before a slew of negative reviews began appearing in print.
"Whether as a wartime adventure story or a love story, Flyboys fails to deliver. Even the special effects set within a historical context are so dull they'll put you to sleep nothing can save this overly long and boring film."
— The Washington Post
"You call this a movie? Clueless actors following a clueless director's orders, sitting in prop planes it's almost laughable. The only thing remotely memorable are the dogfight scenes."
— The New York Times
"The film used a large number of CGI-generated effects, but they were poorly executed. It didn't feel like World War I at all. Rather, it felt like a story set in a futuristic world a cheap, third-rate sci-fi story at that."
— Entertainment Weekly
"This is a textbook example of a big-budget aerial combat film that accomplishes nothing. The story follows a formulaic pattern: plot, battle, romance, plot, battle, plot, final showdown utterly devoid of uniqueness. The only highlight is its liveliness you could watch it as a laughable cliché comedy."
— The New Yorker
In his Silicon Valley office, Larry Ellison had just returned to California. After finishing work, he specifically set aside time to read the newspapers and magazines commenting on his son's film. But faced with a sea of negative reviews, his elderly face flushed bright red. If not for having mellowed out in recent years, he would've flipped his desk by now.