onigiri
patreon
Chapter 427: The Last Work Before the New Year
🕑 Added 2025-08-16 14:55:45 +0000 UTCThe holiday season is a very strange one.
If there are no blockbuster movies, the box office during this period will usually be higher than normal weekdays, but if you compare it with the weekend box office, you will find that it is not much higher.
But if there is a blockbuster movie that triggers a massive viewing craze, then this movie will have amazing potential.
And "Iron Man" is undoubtedly one of the lucky few movies.
Starting from the preview on December 21st and including the box office in the following three days of the weekend, the first weekend box office performance of "Iron Man" is expected to reach 110 million US dollars.
This result made Nanaya a little jealous, because his FSN’s first weekend box office performance last year did not even exceed 100 million.
And because of the continuation of the Christmas holiday, the weekdays that would have caused a significant drop in box office revenue do not exist, and Iron Man's first week box office results will be horrific.
It is foreseeable that the box office of "Iron Man" will undoubtedly exceed Nanaya's previous North American box office performance of 318 million US dollars.
However, compared to its popularity in North America, the global box office of "Iron Man" seems a little deserted.
Although the box office results are not bad and it is the Christmas champion in major film markets, it is inferior to North America.
After all, Washimine Entertainment’s global publicity and promotion is not perfect, and it is impossible to achieve a carpet-style promotion like in North America.
In addition, the character of Iron Man is only popular in his home base of North America, and his fan base in the world is basically zero.
Compared to Superman with an S printed on his chest and the money-powered Mr. Iron Man, to other countries and regions, "Iron Man" is just a very ordinary special effects movie.
If described in terms of Chinese IP, Dachao and Laoye are a bit like "Journey to the West" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and they are also well-known in Europe and the United States.
Hollywood even made a movie based on Journey to the West, although the plot was changed so much that even the mothers of Comrades Wu and Zhang's two characters, Cheng'en, were unrecognizable.
As for "Iron Man", it is more like "Fengshen". Although it is well-known in the circle, few people know it outside the cultural circle.
Of course, nowadays we even have "Nezha and Transformers", maybe the "Investiture of the Gods" IP will be more famous than "Journey to the West" in the future?
So, building a fan base cannot be rushed and can only be cultivated slowly.
In his previous life, Marvel was able to become the world's number one comic IP. In this life, Nanaya also has the patience to make Marvel a world-class film brand in the next ten years.
However, compared to the extremely popular "Iron Man", its competitor "Night at the Museum" seems to be a bit mediocre.
After receiving an inflated first-round box office of 13 million, "Night at the Museum" received a box office of 15 million US dollars on the 22nd.
As a result, the first-day box office of "Night at the Museum" reached 28 million US dollars.
This result is certainly quite good for an original IP movie. If it was released during the Christmas season in previous years, it would have no problem winning the holiday box office championship.
After all, compared to the number of Hollywood movies released in a year, only the top batch of movies can make over 100 million in the first weekend.
In the following two days, the box office performance of "Night at the Museum" did not disappoint.
With $15.12 million on Saturday and $15.98 million on Sunday, Night at the Museum's first weekend box office totals reached nearly $60 million.
This can be considered a hit in the off-season, excellent in the holiday season, and a decent result in the summer season. The Fox executives should have been very happy.
Yes, originally.
Compared with the blockbuster movie "Iron Man", the performance of "Night at the Museum" is somewhat overshadowed.
This did not disappoint. Marvel Studios' first superhero action film severely overwhelmed "Night at the Museum".
Of course, "Night at the Museum" is not completely without chance. Judging from the box office curve, this movie is incredibly stable.
On Monday, the end of its first weekend, it still grossed more than 15 million U.S. dollars.
Although this is related to the Christmas holiday, if this result can be maintained, "Night at the Museum" may really be able to make a comeback.
After all, for a popcorn movie like "Iron Man", after driving away all the audiences who could watch the movie to the cinema in the first few days, it is difficult for the box office performance to remain above 15 million US dollars.
But everyone knows that this is impossible. Even Fox’s top executives only hope that the film can maintain its $15 million per day for a little longer.
When Nanaya, Shion and others left North America and returned to Japan to celebrate the New Year, "Iron Man" had already earned $150 million at the box office.
According to estimates by several box office forecasting agencies, the final North American box office performance of "Iron Man" should be able to reach $400 million, and the global box office should not be less than $700 million.
This is because "Iron Man" is less well-known worldwide. If it were replaced with Superman's IP, with this North American performance, the global box office would be able to reach at least $800 million.
As for Iron Man's rival Night at the Museum, its current box office performance has just reached 90 million US dollars.
If it were a normal situation, then "Iron Man" could have just said to "Night at the Museum" "Good fight, GG." to end this conflict.
But in reality, many things cannot be answered by simple data reasoning.
You should know that the single-day box office of "Iron Man" has begun to decline, but although the single-day box office of "Night at the Museum" is not as good as that of "Iron Man", it still maintains a comparable level.
If "Night at the Museum" can continue its current trend, it is not impossible for the film to experience negative growth in its second week.
But now it is almost the end of the year, and Nanaya has to go back to Japan to celebrate the New Year. He can only trouble Washimine's local North American employees to report the box office data in real time and wait for instructions from him and Shion at any time.
Nanaya himself returned to Tokyo on Shion's private plane.
Also hitting the plane to return to China were several girls from Trier and members of [Erque Studio] including Ori.
However, Nanaya himself was full of hesitations about going home for the New Year.
"Anyway, I'm still not going back to my hometown for the New Year this year, so I might as well stay in North America."
While on the plane, Nanaya complained to Shion in a low voice.
"You've been busy in the United States for a year and haven't been back home. How can you not go home?"
"It's boring, staying in the villa by myself and having to prepare my own food." Nanaya scratched his head and said, "I'm thinking about going to Hakone (a Japanese hot spring resort) for vacation."
Although I have asked a housekeeping company to clean the villa regularly, there is definitely no problem with sleeping.
But if you really want to live there, eating becomes a big problem.
I haven't been back to Japan for a year. The villa is so empty that even mice won't move in, so how could there be any food?
If he wants to check in, he has to light a fire and cook, which always makes Nanaya feel annoyed.
To put it bluntly, this animal is afraid of trouble.
"Why go to Hakone? This year, I'll spend the New Year with you!"
Shion rolled her eyes at Nanaya. After making sure that the girls from Trier were not eavesdropping, she whispered to Nanaya.
"Um?"
"Yeah, this should be our first year together, right?"
Shion said as a matter of course, "Shouldn't it be like this?"
"Yeah...you're right."
Many images flashed through Nanaya's mind. Some were normal and could pass the review directly, some could only pass the review after being mosaiced, and some could not pass the review even after being mosaiced.
Suddenly, Nanaya felt that this New Year would not be so difficult to endure, and it would even be very enjoyable.
Of course, the premise of this is that there are enough ingredients at home.
Otherwise, it would be a bit unreasonable to spend the entire New Year holiday eating sandwiches.
Don't think it's impossible. Shion, who is terrible at housework, might really do something like this.
However, before officially entering the new year, Nanaya still has some final cleanup work to do in Japan.
Because she happened to be returning to Japan at the end of the year, Nanaya was invited to attend the TBS TV Japan Record Awards as a guest.
In fact, the person originally invited was not Nanaya herself, but Nanaya’s teacher Hanai Ryuichi.
But the old man thought it was too troublesome, and he and his wife were going on a trip, so he left this troublesome matter to Nanaya.
At first, the old man wanted to trouble Shiki Ryougi who was in Japan, but Shiki let the cat out of the bag on the phone (or deliberately let the cat out of the bag), and told the old man that Nanaya would return to Japan on the 29th.
Therefore, Nanaya, the eldest disciple of Director Hanai, was arranged clearly by the old man.
"Anyway, you're just going to stay at home and act like a nerd after you return home, right? Go and help me get this invitation."
The old man gave instructions to Nanaya in a commanding tone on the phone.
"Why me?"
Nanaya still wanted to struggle hard.
You have to know that because the TV station wanted to broadcast live, he couldn't just appear on the 30th, he had to rehearse the day before.
"Shiki Ryougi said so. She said you'll be back before the 30th."
In this regard, Nanaya could only look up to the sky and sigh: "Shiki, you plotted against me!"
Fortunately, Trier will also be attending the Japan Record Awards this time. With acquaintances around, Nanaya doesn't find this job too difficult.
At worst, I can just use it as an excuse to accompany Rin to work.
He's been hanging out with Shion a lot lately, and he hasn't been with Rin in a while.
Anyway, as a guest, he doesn't have much work to do.
Moreover, given his current status in the entertainment industry, no one would dare to raise any objections even if he just stood there and slacked off.
This is probably what it means to be a blatant wage thief.
It’s quite exciting when you think about it.
