[Chapter 454: No Favoritism]
On December 21st, the movie As Good as It Gets officially opened on a large scale, screening in 3,000 screens.
On its opening day, it grossed $9.31 million, and with midnight showings adding another $3.87 million, the total Friday box office reached $13.18 million.
This performance truly exceeded everyone's expectations except for Linton himself.
No matter how much publicity and buzz were generated, As Good as It Gets was still a strongly art-house film. Many quietly speculated that the high opening day earnings were due to promotion and gossip hype, and that as general audiences started watching, word of mouth would surely drop, leading to a significant decline in ticket sales afterward.
However, the results from a third-party survey company, Cieasre, commissioned by Linton Films, shocked everyone.
The survey was conducted in 150 theaters across 30 cities, with 9,000 questionnaires distributed and 8,381 collected on-site after screenings.
Among those, a remarkable 6,371 viewers gave the film an A+ rating, 753 rated it A, 208 rated it A-, 421 gave B+, and only 193 rated it below C. The dissatisfaction rate was just 2.3%.
In other words, although As Good as It Gets was an art film, it was very audience-friendly. Viewers widely reported being deeply moved and nostalgic after watching it; many even said they would recommend it enthusiastically to friends.
This meant the movie was very likely to become a blockbuster.
In the following two days, the film's box office continued strong.
On Saturday, it earned $13.51 million.
On Sunday, it made $10.33 million.
In total, the opening weekend three-day gross reached $37.02 million.
Still, it couldn't surpass last week's No.1 hit The Sixth Sense, settling for second place.
The Sixth Sense was truly dominating -- after its opening weekend haul of $65.76 million, it earned another $39.46 million during the following four weekdays.
Within just one full week, the box office totaled $105.22 million, successfully crossing the $100 million mark.
In its second weekend, it brought in $41.74 million, retaining the top spot.
In only ten days, The Sixth Sense had grossed $146.96 million in the North American market.
Judging from these trends, it was almost certain that The Sixth Sense's total North American box office would surpass $300 million.
That same weekend, the film also premiered overseas in 10 countries and regions, earning $53.71 million over the three-day weekend.
Meanwhile, other films released during this busy season suffered badly, caught in the crossfire of The Sixth Sense and As Good as It Gets and plunging in box office returns.
Ranking third was Paramount's Sabrina, released concurrently with As Good as It Gets, with a disappointing $14.18 million opening weekend.
Fourth was Jumanji, released two weeks earlier, earning $10.31 million that weekend.
Fifth was Braveheart, also two weeks old, taking in $8.71 million that weekend.
What made things worse was the theaters further cut their showtimes, allocating more screenings to The Sixth Sense and As Good as It Gets.
More importantly, both films were of such high quality they were virtually immune to criticism; even negativity wouldn't convince audiences.
Linton now wielded a media influence strong enough to hold his ground in any public opinion battle.
Although As Good as It Gets narrowly lost out to The Sixth Sense, placing second in opening weekend box office, no one underestimated it.
For an art film to generate such box office energy stunned both media and critics. Many critics spontaneously began writing analyses about As Good as It Gets.
Within a short time, numerous reviews praised it as a rare success in both artistic merit and commercial appeal.
---
After a week of negotiations, UPN Network finally reached a cooperation agreement with Donald Trump, securing exclusive North American broadcast rights for the Miss Universe pageant.
Because Linton had cleverly obtained the negotiation baseline ahead of time from Donald, the final deal settled at $62 million.
This was just $2 million above his bottom line. After all, the coverage and influence of UPN TV Network were still quite far behind NBC.
Once the news broke, it was not NBC but the newly appointed president of MCA Network, Melman Wirth, who first felt unsettled.
Melman had been brought over from ABC by Korn Ferry International during Linton's recent overhaul of the Universal Group.
Having served as MCA Network's president for nearly a month, he had been steadily organizing internal operations, setting everything on a solid path.
Yet Melman was far from satisfied with maintaining the status quo; he wanted MCA to undergo a qualitative leap comparable to UPN.
At this critical moment, UPN announced the major acquisition of exclusive rights to broadcast the Miss Universe pageant in North America.
Further digging revealed this was orchestrated personally by the big boss, Linton.
This was unacceptable -- both UPN and MCA were fully owned by Linton's holding company, so how could UPN be the favored like a biological kid while MCA was treated like an adopted one?
Anyone paying attention knew that after acquiring UPN, Linton had invested heavily, bringing in hit shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Teletubbies, and ER.
That was why UPN was soaring now; and on top of that, giving the high-profile Miss Universe pageant to UPN made the favoritism blatant.
So representing MCA, Melman felt justified in asking Linton for a share of quality programming.
He was certainly not alone in this; MCA's top executives urged him to seek program support from Linton.
Of course, as MCA's president and a senior manager, Melman knew he had to approach this tactfully.
...
After scheduling a meeting at Linton's office, he first updated Linton on MCA's recent progress.
Having received a positive response, he then voiced his real request.
"Boss, although MCA has seen a boost in employee morale and renewed energy from top to bottom, and our operations are steadily improving, we still haven't found a breakthrough business opportunity. Everyone says your vision is unique and you hold countless creative assets. Could you possibly lend us some support?"
Linton laughed quietly upon hearing this, already understanding Melman's true purpose. He had prepared for this and agreed -- it was only fair not to play favorites and to motivate MCA as well.
"Melman, so your real reason for coming today is to ask me for resources."
"Boss, what choice do I have? Watching UPN soar like this, MCA has to catch up too. I'm sure that's what you want as well, right?"
*****
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