The day after The Flash premiere, the film's critical reception was officially lifted.
There was no doubt about the quality of this superhero blockbuster itself.
In addition, Warner Bros. Pictures had not only invested a 50 million dollar marketing and distribution budget in The Flash but had also spared no effort in media public relations.
Driven by these combined factors, although it was a standard popcorn commercial film, The Flash received very positive reviews across all major North American media platforms.
After statistics, calculated on a 10-point scale, The Flash's composite media score reached a stunning 9.1 points.
Simon himself felt that, given the film standards of this era and the quality of The Flash itself, an 8-point critical score would have been very reasonable. The 9.1-point result clearly included the effects of Warner's public relations efforts.
Although American film critics prided themselves on objectivity and fairness, they were not immune to influence.
Major studios normally did not interfere much with media evaluations of a film. However, on a key project like The Flash that related to important layouts, an occasional push was something critics were quite willing to accommodate.
In the end, film critics survived by attaching themselves to the entire Hollywood film industry.
In the original timeline, almost every entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe series could achieve high scores. Anyone with clear eyes could see that this was absolutely not due solely to the films' own quality.
In any case, the outstanding 9.1-point media word of mouth, the overwhelming publicity offensive, the opening on more than 3,000 screens, and the support of the highly popular superhero IP itself combined timing, location, and harmony to naturally create this superhero blockbusters sensational box office debut.
On December 20, just the opening day, including advance and midnight screenings, The Flash smoothly earned 16.12 million dollars.
By comparison, the same 70 million dollar production budget film directed by Spielberg, Hook, which had opened on December 13 and just completed its first week, had accumulated only 17.55 million dollars over seven days.
The Flash had earned 16.12 million dollars on its very first day of release, already matching Hook's entire seven-day first-week box office.
Setting other factors aside, this comparison alone was enough to show The Flash's unstoppable momentum.
From December 20 to December 22, over its three-day opening weekend, The Flash quickly earned 49.31 million dollars. Such box office results trailed only the previous two Batman blockbusters and had no rivals anywhere else in Hollywood.
So much so that when The Flash's opening weekend box office came out, a Hollywood Reporter article could not help but sigh that Hollywood movies now fell into two categories at the box office: DC Cinematic Universe films and other films.
Under The Flash's powerful impact, the old films that should have seen box office rebounds during this Christmas-spanning period actually experienced varying degrees of decline.
Perhaps because the media comparisons were too stark, Hook's word of mouth among both critics and audiences slipped further. This also caused the film's second weekend box office to drop a full 28 percent. In a period that should have seen a rebound, a 28 percent drop was already very severe.
Moreover, Hook's opening box office starting point had been very low to begin with.
Thus, compared to The Flash's 49.31 million dollars over three opening days, Hook's second weekend earned only 9.68 million dollars.
Over ten days, this blockbuster on which Columbia Pictures had pinned high hopes had accumulated just 27.23 million dollars.
In the original timeline, despite Hook's collapsed word of mouth, its North American box office had still broken 100 million dollars. This was mainly because no other competing films had been in the same period, and it happened to be Christmas. The lively Hook had indeed been quite suitable for family audiences, allowing it to achieve that domestic total.
Now, with The Flash whose IP popularity was no less than Peter Pan's, plus the huge gap between the two films in quality and critical reception, how audiences would choose was completely obvious.
Moreover, before The Flash, the 3D animated film Toy Story from the Thanksgiving period, which was also suitable for family audiences, still maintained solid staying power.
Therefore, based on Hook's ten-day cumulative box office and its subsequent trajectory under the impact of The Flash and other films, the media generally predicted that this blockbuster's expected North American total would likely stop at 60 million dollars.
This figure was more than 40 percent lower than the Hook box office in Simon's memory.
A 60 million dollar North American total might still be called a success for other films.
However, for Hook, with a production cost alone of 70 million dollars and combined production and marketing budget exceeding 100 million even if not reaching The Flash's 120 million level, it would be extremely difficult to recoup all costs even through subsequent overseas releases and video peripherals.
In fact, not only Hook but also JFK which had opened alongside it the previous week, as well as the series of films released during the Thanksgiving period, had all seen their box office figures clearly impacted.
After all, with a 49.31 million dollar opening weekend and the film's word of mouth, The Flash could almost guarantee 250 million dollars domestically.
250 million dollars meant carving out a very large slice of the year-end box office pie.
The more The Flash took, the less naturally remained for other films.
A new week began, and Christmas drew ever closer.
However, the eyes of the entire world were drawn to every move in Moscow.
The European turmoil that had lasted more than two years, following the failure of Gorbachev's reforms, had reached its peak in recent months.
Over the past two years, East and West Germany had reunified, Eastern European countries had successively declared their departure from the Warsaw Pact, and some republics had even announced independence. The Soviet regime that had confronted the Western world for half a century had entered its final moments.
Finally, just after Christmas Eve passed, on Christmas Day itself, Soviet supreme leader Gorbachev announced his resignation from all personal positions. All of the Soviet Union's political, economic, and military assets would be inherited by Russia.
The next day, after the final session of the Supreme Soviet, The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics officially declared its dissolution. [TL/N: USSR]
Amid the worldwide media's overwhelming coverage, Simon simply watched this massive change with cold eyes.
The Russians seemed to have obtained the freedom they wanted.
Only they did not know that what awaited them was an even harsher, colder winter.
Then Simon realized how fortunate a country America was.
They had George Washington, separation of powers, a bottom-up power structure. In two hundred years since founding, aside from the Civil War, the homeland had experienced no major disasters. After the Soviet collapse, this country would become the planet's sole superpower.
For many, many years to come, as the only superpower, America would only be the one bullying others.
While the whole world cheered that the era of peace had finally arrived, Simon knew that peace was always temporary.
War. War never changes.
The selfishness and aggression rooted deep in the genes of every creature on this planet destined too many things to end in tragedy.
The world, of course, would not change because of the pessimism in Simon's bones.
As countries around the world planned how to respond to the new global order after the Soviet dissolution, the entire Westeros system also began discussing the next phase of expansion plans.
After the acquisition of MCA, Simon had already initiated a scheme within the Daenerys Entertainment Group to develop emerging markets.
With the Soviet dissolution, the further opening Eastern European market would be Daenerys Entertainment's next operational focus.
In addition, the Westeros company as a whole was drafting plans to expand across Eastern Europe. Cersei Capital had already begun scouting to raise a fund specifically for investment in Eastern European countries.
Even the Australian Johnston family had Anthony Johnston planning a trip to Moscow in the near future.
After all, Russia was a well-known resource powerhouse.
Since the national wealth accumulated during the Soviet era was destined to be squandered by Yeltsin, Simon did not mind taking a share. Therefore, even while continuing to accompany Janet during her maternity leave, he began considering some plans. [|||||]
On the other hand, changes in the world order had not affected the North American Christmas period.
After its opening weekend of 49.31 million dollars, The Flash's first-week seven-day box office ultimately reached 72.86 million dollars. It was not only the undisputed weekly box office champion but also left all subsequent films on the chart far behind.
During the week from December 20 to December 26, the second place on the chart was neither Hook which had opened the previous week nor JFK from the Oliver Stone and Kevin Costner collaboration. It was the Daenerys Entertainment 3D animated film Toy Story from the Thanksgiving period.
Because of Christmas, Toy Story under The Flash's dominance had not achieved a box office rebound but had still maintained only a slight 7 percent drop, earning another 16.71 million dollars.
Five weeks after release, this 3D animated film's cumulative box office had reached 140.69 million dollars.
Considering that its weekly box office was still holding at the high level of 16.71 million dollars, plus the enduring long-tail nature of animated films, Toy Story could very steadily push toward the 200 million dollar mark in the coming screenings. Such results would surpass the original timeline's 1995 version of Toy Story at 190 million dollars.
However, considering the resources Daenerys Entertainment had invested in this project, 200 million dollars in box office seemed only natural.
In fact, if not for The Flash's impact, this version of Toy Story should have performed even higher.
Although Toy Story trailed the top film The Flash by a full 50 million dollars or more, it was still far luckier compared to Hook and JFK.
In its second week of release, Hook's overall box office drop reached 26 percent, earning another 12.98 million dollars.
Two weeks after release, this 70 million dollar investment blockbuster had accumulated only 30.53 million dollars. The project's loss had essentially become inevitable.
Adding the summer Bruce Willis film The Ultimate Eagle with its 65 million dollar investment, Columbia Pictures' two key projects this year had both ended in very dismal fashion.
The Japanese economy was still sliding downward. With two consecutive films suffering massive losses, rumors had even begun circulating in the industry that Sony planned to exit Hollywood.
Although Sony immediately clarified that such talk was only rumor, after paying several large "tuition fees" since acquiring Columbia Pictures, Sony clearly could not sustain it much longer and had begun questioning the two professional managers Peter Guber and Jon Peters at Columbia.
In addition, after some media outlets dug around, they unexpectedly discovered that Columbia Pictures' best-returning films in recent years had precisely been last year's two collaborations with Daenerys Entertainment, A League of Their Own and Misery.
Although profits had to be shared with Daenerys Entertainment, the combined production costs of last year's two films had not been as high as either of this year's blockbusters.
Yet each of those two films had outperformed this year's The Ultimate Eagle and Hook, two so-called "blockbusters" in name only.
Because of this report, the media once again turned their attention to Daenerys Entertainment, which had become Hollywood's giant in just a few short years.
They also discovered that in recent years, the closer a company cooperated with Daenerys Entertainment, the greater the benefits it received.
Simon Westeros's very first film Run Lola Run had directly helped Orion Pictures at the time escape the risk of bankruptcy.
Several films cooperated with Fox had also filled that major studio's coffers. The Butterfly Effect and Final Destination series were both still continuing now.
Then came the ten-film plan, with every entry bringing very substantial returns to its partners.
Next was the DC Cinematic Universe plan.
If not for the DC Cinematic Universe bringing massive revenue to Time Warner and even greatly boosting the company's stock price, this large media group that had only completed its merger last year would absolutely not have found it easy to weather the economic downturn following the collapse of the American bond market.
The intensity of internal power struggles at Time Warner was almost common knowledge.
If not for fully facilitating the cooperation between Time Warner and Daenerys on the DC Cinematic Universe and other projects, Steve Ross, who had been heavily criticized because of the original merger and subsequent corporate difficulties, would definitely not have held such a stable position within the Time Warner Group.
Because of this public opinion trend, even Peter Guber and Jon Peters, whose positions might be at risk under Sony pressure, had privately contacted Amy Pascal again to probe whether the two sides had any chance of continued cooperation.
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[TL/N: nvm]